It was an amusing group, the wild-cat in the chicken-coop with its body-guard of dirty, grinning little Mexicans, and Norman circling excitedly around them, explaining that Lupe asked a dollar for it, but that he could only give fifty cents, and for Jack to make him understand.
Jack did make him understand, and conducted the trade to Norman's entire satisfaction.

Then recognizing Lupe as one of the boys he had seen around the office, he began to question him in Mexican about the mines and the men.

Then it developed that Lupe was the son of one of the men who had been saved by Jack's quick warning, and when the boy repeated what some of the miners had said about him, Jack grew red and did not translate it all.

The part he did translate was to the effect that the men wanted him back at the mine.

They were having trouble with the "fat boss," their name for the new manager.
The little transaction and talk with the boys seemed to cheer Jack up so much that Mary mentally apologized to the wild-cat for her inhospitable reception, and electrified Norman by an offer to help him build a more suitable cage for it than the coop in which it was confined.