ce now, showing that he was
pretty nearly cowed.

"How is that?" demanded the other, instantly.

"I'm meaning to be his friend, and the friend, of his folks," Kracker
continued.

"Funny way you have of showing your friendly feelings, then, I must
say," declared Thad, with scorn in his voice; "making him a prisoner,
trying to force him to give up a secret you choose to think he
carries; and when he refuses to take you at your word, putting him
there on that ledge, to starve, or face a horrible death in perhaps
falling down a couple of hundred feet."

Kracker looked a little confused, but it was only a flash in the pan.
Such a thing as shame was foreign to his nature. For years he had been
used to browbeating almost every person with whom he had had dealings.
The fact that first of all a mere slip of a woman had dared defy him,
and then her boy did the same, nettled him beyond description; and he
had arrived at desperate measures at the time Aleck, so unfortunately
for the boy, fell into his hands.

And now it galled Kracker to see how he and his two helpers were being
actually held up by a parcel of half grown lads. Why, it would seem as
though some mockery of fate had taken hold of his fortunes, and was
finding keen pleasure in adding to his humiliation.

He would have liked to rush upon these cool boyish customers, and to
have trampled them under foot, as he had possibly done many men in
times past, when he was less huge in his proportions, and could get
around better. But somehow he did not dare attempt it.

Perhaps it was the display of weapons that awed him; and yet Colonel
Kracker was accustomed to seeing such things, and knew how to take
them at their true value. Then it may have been the manner of the
spokesman of the little party that had so depressing an effect upon
the bully. Why, what was the world coming to, when mere boys began to
hold the whip hand, and shape things as they pleased?

He started to talk, but spluttered so much he could not make
intelligible sounds. And his round moon face had taken on a deep red
hue again, until it bordered on the purple. Thad, who had some
knowledge of medicine, as we have seen on numerous occasions, really
began to wonder whether the bulky man might not be getting perilously
near the border line, and taking chances with a sudden attack of
apoplexy, or else something else along those lines.

Once or twice Thad had seen something move back of the three men. He
d