He managed to release a gruff laugh.

“You—­you damn bum; hell, that’s a good joke—­what’r yer givin’ me now?”

“The exact truth; and it will be worth your while, my man, to brace up and listen.  I am going to give you a chance to redeem yourself—­a last chance.  It will be a nice story to tell back in St. Louis that you helped to kidnap a wealthy young white woman, using your office as a cloak for the crime, and, besides that, killing two men to serve a river gambler.  Suppose I was to tell that sort of tale to Governor Clark, and give him the proofs—­where would you land?”

He breathed hard, scarcely able to articulate, but decidedly sober.

“What—­what’s that?  Ain’t you the fellar thet wus on the boat?  Who—­who the devil are yer?”

“I am an officer in the army,” I said gravely, determined to impress him first of all, “and I worked on that steamer merely to learn the facts in this case.  I know the whole truth now, even to your late quarrel with Kirby.  I do not believe you realized before what you were doing—­but you do now.  You are guilty of assisting that contemptible gambler to abduct Eloise Beaucaire, and are shielding him now in his cowardly scheme to compel her to marry him by threat and force.”

“The damn, low-lived pup—­I told him whut he wus.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t prevent the crime.  He’s all you said, and more.  But calling the man names isn’t going to frighten him, nor get that girl out of his clutches.  What I want to know is, are you ready to help me fight the fellow? block his game?”

“How?  What do ye want done?”

“Give me a pledge first, and I’ll tell you.”

He took a long moment to decide, not yet wholly satisfied as to my identity.

“Did ye say ye wus an army offercer?”

“Yes, a lieutenant; my name is Knox.”

“I never know’d yer.”

“Probably not, but Joe Kirby does.  I was on the steamer Warrior coming down when he robbed old Judge Beaucaire.  That was what got me mixed up in this affair.  Later I was in that skiff you fellows rammed and sunk on the Illinois.  I know the whole dirty story, Kennedy, from the very beginning.  And now it is up to you whether or not I tell it to Governor Clark.”

“I reckon yer must be right,” he admitted helplessly.  “Only I quit cold the minute I caught on ter whut wus up.  I never know’d she wa’n’t no nigger till after we got yere.  Sure’s yer live that’s true.  Only then I didn’t know whut else ter do, so I got bilin’ drunk.”

“You are willing to work with me, then?”

“Yer kin bet I am; I ain’t no gurl-stealer.”

“Then listen, Kennedy.  Jack Rale told me exactly what their plans were, because he needed me to help him.  When you jumped the reservation, he had to find someone else, and picked me.  The first thing he did, however, was to get you drunk, so you wouldn’t interfere.  That was part of their game, and Kirby came into the saloon a few minutes ago to see how it worked.  He stood there and laughed at you, lying asleep.  They mean to pull off the affair tonight.  Here’s the story.”