"You all right," he said. "You no pay. You never no pay. You bully boy and all right."
And for the rest of the _Annie Mine's_ stay in port, the sampan men refused money at Alf Davis's hand. Out of admiration for his pluck and independence, they had given him the freedom of the harbor.
Stanton Davies and Jim Wemple ceased from their talk to listen to an increase of uproar in the street. A volley of stones thrummed and boomed the wire mosquito nettings that protected the windows. It was a hot night, and the sweat of the heat stood on their faces as they listened. Arose the incoherent clamor of the mob, punctuated by individual cries in Mexican-Spanish. Least terrible among the obscene threats were: "Death to the Gringos!" "Kill the American pigs!" "Drown the American dogs in the sea!"
Stanton Davies and Jim Wemple shrugged their shoulders patiently to each other, and resumed their conversation, talking louder in order to make themselves heard above the uproar.
"The question is _how_," Wemple said. "It's forty-seven miles to Panuco, by river----"
"And the land's impossible, with Zaragoza's and Villa's men on the loot and maybe fraternizing," Davies agreed.
Wemple nodded and continued: "And she's at the East Coast Magnolia, two miles beyond, if she isn't back at the hunting camp. We've got to get her----"
"We've played pretty square in this matter, Wemple," Davies said. "And we might as well speak up and acknowledge what each of us knows the other knows. You want her. I want her."
"And now's the time when it's up to us to make a show as if we didn't want her and that all we want is just to save her and get her down here."
"And a truce until we do save her--I get you," Wempel affirmed.
"A truce until we get her safe and sound back here in Tampico, or aboard a battleship. After that? ..."
Both men shrugged shoulders and beamed on each other as their hands met in ratification.
Fresh volleys of stones thrummed against the wire-screened windows; a boy's voice rose shrilly above the clamor, proclaiming death to the Gringos; and the house reverberated to the heavy crash of some battering ram against the street-door downstairs. Both men, snatching up automatic rifles, ran down to where their fire could command the threatened door.