curled over backward, as if broken in the
middle, and fired his pistol straight up into the sky and then lay still.

CHAPTER XVI

THE GOLD AND THE PIRATES

Certain that Long Jim was dead, I turned on Petrak and presented my
pistol at him. The little fiend was surveying me blankly, taken aback at
the sudden shot. He stood within twenty paces of me, with his legs wide
apart and his knees bent as if he were on the deck of a plunging vessel,
dismay on his face and the blade he had intended for my back held limply
before him.

I could see the butt of a big pistol hanging from his belt in a holster
he had made from the top of an old shoe, but he made no motion to reach
for it. The fingers of his left hand were twitching, splayed out as if
from fear, and his mouth was open showing his yellow teeth.

"If you move I'll kill you!" I said, having a mind to take him and compel
him to lead Riggs and me to Thirkle's camp.

"Don't shoot!" he whined. "Don't shoot! Where did ye git the gun, sir? We
never knowed as how ye had it. Don't shoot, Mr. Trenhum! Ye mind how I
took yer luggage aboard!"

"Where's Thirkle and Buckrow?" I demanded.

"Up there," he said, swinging his free hand in the direction we had come,
and I saw the familiar crafty look come into his eyes.

"How far?"

"Quite a bit, sir; in a cut of a clift with the booty."

"How far?"

"Not far it ain't, Mr. Trenhum. Roundaboutish, but not far; and I'm
thinkin' I might lead ye on to 'em, sir, if ye'd let me have the sack we
had, sir. Ye done for Jim right enough, but that's my sack now."

"Throw down that knife and unbuckle your belt, and see that you don't
reach for a pistol," I said.

There was something in his manner that led me to believe he had a trap
for me; either he had seen Long Jim move, or thought Thirkle and Buckrow
might come down upon us if he could keep me talking.

He dropped the knife, and as he reached for the buckle of the belt I
turned my head in an involuntary movement to make sure that Long Jim had
not recovered, an action bred by the suspicious manner of Petrak. The
pirate was lying as he had fallen, with his arms over his head and his
pistol a yard away; but the little red-headed man turned and ran in
the flash of my eye. I fired at him as he scurried behind a sprawling
hemp-tree, but missed; and he never stopped, and I stood and listened as
he crashed through the brush.

It would have been senseless to pursue him. As he had k