Although perhaps stunned at first by the shock of the fall, he was
obviously uninjured, and stood sturdily erect and vigilant. He looked
alert, inquiring, anxious, resolved into wonder, silently awaiting
developments. His eyes shifted from one speaker to another of the strange
party.
"Lord! He'll tell it all!" exclaimed Alvin Holvey, appalled and in
hopeless dismay.
"Naw, he won't, now," snarled Copenny rancorously. "Thar will be a way
ter stop his mouth."
"Why, he is too leetle ter talk. He don't sense nuthin'," cried old
Clenk, with an eager note of expostulation, attesting that he was human,
after all. "Don't do nuthin' else rash, Phineas Copenny, fur the love of
God!"
Jubal Clenk dropped on one knee in front of the little boy, and the two
were inscrutably eyeing each other at close quarters. "Hello, Bubby!
Whar's yer tongue? Cat got it?" he asked in a grandfatherly fashion,
while the other men looked on, grim and anxious, at this effort to gauge
the mentality of the child and their consequent danger from him.
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