“What you goin’ to do with him, Bill?”

“Croak him.  I ain’t goin’ to take chances with him.  It ain’t my way to take chances I don’t have to take.”

“You better not do any croakin’, Bill.  I won’t stand for that.  I’m tough, and I’ve done plenty of tough things in my day, but I never croaked a little kid like him, and I won’t stand for it.”

“Don’t you go and get soft now.  ’Tain’t any worse to croak a kid than a man.  You’d croak a man if you had to, and this is a time when we’ve got to do it to save ourselves.”

“Well, I won’t stand for it while I’m sober, and I’m sober now even if I have had a drink or two.”  Hank reached for a firebrand with which to relight his pipe.

“Well, you’ve got to stand for this.  I’m mixed up in it just as much as you be, and I’m goin’ to have some say.  I ain’t goin’ to take chances on him goin’ back to his gang and givin’ us away.”

“How you goin’ to do it?”

“Take him along in the boat and drop him overboard.  That’s the easiest way.  There ain’t much chance of anybody findin’ him, and if they do they’ll just think he got drowned some way hisself.  Dead folks don’t talk.”

“That’s somethin’ I won’t stand for!  You can’t go droppin’ anybody overboard while I’m in the boat!  Not if I know it!”

“What you goin’ to do, play the sucker?” Bill turned angrily toward his companion.  “Maybe you’ll go and peach!”

“Don’t you call me a sucker!  Don’t you say I’m a peacher!” Hank rose to his feet and faced Bill menacingly.

For a moment Jamie thought the men were going to fight, but Bill remained seated and his manner suddenly changed.  Jamie thought he acted as though he were afraid.

“See here, Hank,” Bill’s voice was modified and conciliatory.  “I ain’t callin’ you a sucker, and I ain’t sayin’ you’ll peach.  What’s the use of us fellers fightin’ about it?  We’re in this together and we’re pardners.  We’ve got to hang together.  What’s the use of us fallin’ out?”

“I’m willin’ to hang together but I won’t be called a sucker or peacher by anybody, and I ain’t goin’ to stand for any croakin’ neither while I’ve got a gun!  Hear me?”

“What we goin’ to do about this here kid then?  We can’t let him go.  He’ll up and run back and blab.  He’s heard too much about our business.  We don’t want to go huntin’ trouble, do we?  Well, we’ll be huntin’ trouble if we let him go.  He knows too much and he knows all about who we be too.”

“What does he know, now?  He don’t know anything except what you’ve gone and blabbed yourself.  We just caught him tryin’ to swipe our cache.  The stuff is our’n.  ’Tain’t his’n.  Our stuff is our’n, ain’t it?  What can he blab about?  That’s what I want to know!”

“He’ll go and tell folks we’ve got this here swag from the ship, and it’ll go to the boss.  That’s what he knows, and that’s what he’ll blab.”