“Where are your comrades?” he asked, “the other three who helped you to steal my boat?”

“Captured it, you mean,” replied Paul, calmly.  “So long as you use the words ‘steal’ and ‘thief,’ you can talk to the air.  I’ve nothing to say.”

“Nor me either, Paul,” said Long Jim, “I can’t remember another time in my life when I felt so little like talkin’.”

Long Jim leaned his head against the wall and half closed his eyes.  His manner expressed the utmost indifference.  Alvarez frowned, but he remembered that they were wholly in his power and he had plans.

“I’ll change the words,” he said, “but I repeat the question.  Where are your comrades?”

“I don’t know,” replied Paul, and feeling a sudden happy thrill of defiance he added:  “They are probably somewhere arranging the details of our rescue.”

Alvarez frowned again.

“That is impossible,” he said.  “Perhaps you do not know your position.  You are not at New Orleans.  Here I am both the civil and military chief and this is my own place.  I can put you to death as brigands or guerillas, caught red-handed upon Spanish soil.”

“Both charges, you know, are false,” said Paul, “you know, too, that we have come to defeat, if we can, a conspiracy between you and Braxton Wyatt, a renegade whose life is doubly forfeit to his people.  He carries plans, maps, and full information of our settlements in Kentucky, and he expects that you will go with many soldiers and cannon to help him and the tribes destroy us.  What plans you and he have beyond this I do not know, but these, my friends and I hope to defeat, and we feel we could not be engaged in a greater or holier task.”

Paul spoke with great fire and eloquence.  His soul was revealed in his eyes, and Alvarez felt that he was in touch with a mind of no common order.

“Imagination!” said the Spaniard trying to laugh the impression away.  “I find in Senor Wyatt a pleasant and intelligent assistant.  He understands the rights of the King of Spain in these vast regions, and has a due regard for them.  You and your comrades are outlaws, subject to the penalty of death and I hold you in my hand.  Yet I am disposed to be generous.  Give me your oath that you and your comrade here and the three in the woods will go back to Kaintock at once and remain there, and I will release you.”

Paul regarded him steadily.  Bold man as he was, the Spaniard’s eyes fell at last.

“We can give no such promise,” said Paul.  “I think that the reasons why we should go on to New Orleans are exceedingly strong.”

“Ez fur me,” said Long Jim, “I ain’t ever been fond uv goin’ back on my own tracks until I git good an’ ready.”

“I merely came here to give you a chance,” said Alvarez, still addressing himself to Paul.  “Do you think that a few woodsmen can stand in the path of Spain?  Do you think that a great ancient monarchy can be held back by stray settlers?”