He also liked the way in which the prodigious Manuel deferred to him.

It inspired the philanthropic motives that led him to share his very excellent cigars with the doughty foreman.

Moreover, he had something far back in his mind, had Mr.Abel Landover.
Percival was indefatigable.

He set the example for every one else, and nothing daunted him.

The sceptics,--and there were many of them at the start,--no longer shook their heads as they went about what once had loomed as a hopeless enterprise, for to their astonishment and gratification the "camp" was actually becoming a substantial reality.
The small group of men who, for obvious reasons, had courted the favour of Abel Landover at the outset, now went out of their way to "stand in" with the amazingly popular man of the hour.
He represented power, he stood for achievement, he rode on the crest of the wave,--and so they believed in him! Landover may have been a wizard in New York, but the wizard of Trigger Island was quite another person altogether,--hence the very sensible defection.
These gentlemen openly and ardently opposed him on one occasion, however.