TEN MINUTES OF REAL DARING
Still keeping his eyes turned on the fugitive, Dick took three
quick, backward steps.
"Halt!" ordered Tag.
"I was going to stop, anyway," smiled Dick. "Now, put your hands up!"
"Why?"
"Because I'm boss here!" remarked Tag.
"I didn't know that you were boss of anything," Dick replied,
still smiling.
"I'm telling you," declared Mosher. "Want me to make good?"
"I wish you'd make something of yourself, instead," rejoined Prescott
in a voice of intense earnestness.
"Get your hands up!" ordered Tag, with a decided increase in
emphasis.
"That's a silly demand on your part," Dick retorted calmly. "Why
should you want my hands up? I'm not armed, and am in no position
to attack you. Are you such a coward, Mosher, that you're afraid
of an unarmed fellow that you could thrash even if you were unarmed?
I can't bring myself to believe that of you.
"You've a mighty fine opinion of me, haven't you?" jeered Tag.
"I'd like to have a fine opinion of you," Prescott declared.
"Oh! And what must I do to win that fine opinion?" demanded Tag
mockingly.
"If you want to know, I'll tell you," Dick continued. "Just put
down that gun and step away from it."
"And then you'll pounce on it and hold me up!" jeered Tag. "Fine!"
"You get away from your weapon," Prescott urged, "and I'll give
you my word of honor not to touch it without your leave."
"Your word of honor?" asked Tag, driven to wonder despite himself.
"What good would your word of honor be?"
"It would be as good as anything I'm capable of," Prescott responded.
"Tag, didn't you ever have any respect for a man's word of honor?
Didn't you ever respect your own?"
"I got that game played on me at school, once," leered Mosher.
"As soon as I swallowed the bait the other fellow kicked me in
the shins and ran off and left me there. Now, Prescott, I don't
want any more nonsense. Put up your hands!"
"I've already declined," Dick smiled calmly. "To that refusal
I'll add my thanks."
"Put up your hands, or I'll keep the gun turned on you and pull
a trigger or two."
"Then the gun isn't loaded," chuckled Dick.
"Oh, isn't it?"
"No, for you're not bad enough, Tag, to shoot down an unarmed
person who isn't your enemy."
"You'll tell the officers you saw me here, won't you?"
"Certainly."
"Then you're my enemy," young Mosher argued, with thorough conviction.
"So you'll put up your hands, and take further orders, as long
as I give 'em, or you'll be found taking a long nap on the grass
here!"
"That's another wrong guess you've made, Tag."
Laughing softly, Dick dropped to a seat on the grass.
"You're a mighty sassy fellow," scowled young Mosher.
"I'm very disobliging sometimes," Prescott admitted. "For instance,
Tag, I won't believe that you're half as bad as you try to paint
yourself."
"Bad?" snorted young Mosher, with something of sullen pride in
his voice. "I'm about as mean as they make them. You know what
they say I did to that farmer?"
"Well, did you?" challenged Prescott.
"I'm not saying," came the gruff answer. "For one thing, it wouldn't
do me a bit of good to deny it. When a fellow has a bad name
everywhere any judge and jury will hang him. Now, I happen to
object to being hanged, or even to being locked up for perhaps
twenty or thirty years. Queer in me, isn't it?"
"What you ought to do," pursued Dick, "and what you will do, if
you are brave and manly, is to drop that gun, face about, and
march yourself back to jail."
"And be locked up some more?" quivered Tag in excitement.
"If you're guilty of assaulting Mr. Leigh, you should be also
brave and manly enough to walk back to jail, ready to pay the
price of your act like a man. If you're not guilty, then you
should be man enough to face the world and prove your innocence
like a real man. Don't be a cowardly sneak, Tag!"
"A coward?" blurted the other angrily. "You ought to know better'n
that. And the officers know better, too; I may be only a boy,
but the officers are out in packs, hunting for me. I know, for
I've seen two pairs of those fellows go by on the road to-day."
"Are you going to be a man, Tag, or just a sneaking coward?" asked
Dick, as he rose.
"Sit down!" commanded Tag sharply.
"If you really want to talk with me, and will say 'please,' I'll
sit down," Dick smiled back coolly at the angry boy. "But if
you're just simply ordering me to sit down, then I won't do anything
of the sort. Do you want to talk with me?"
"Sit down!"
"You didn't say 'please.'"
"I'm not going to say it."
"Then good-bye for a little while."
Though the muzzles of the sawed-off shotgun stared wickedly at
him, Dick Prescott turned on his heel, walking off.
"Are you going, now, to tip the officers off that you've seen
me?" called Tag.
"Yes."
Behind Dick, as he kept on his way back toward camp there came
a snort of anger. Prescott was not quite as cool as he appeared
to be. He knew there was at least a chance that savage Tag Mosher
would send the contents of one or both barrels of the gun into
his back. Dick, however, had mastered the first secret of bravery,
which is to conceal one's fear.
Again snorting, young Mosher cocked both hammers of the shotgun,
Dick heard the clicks, but still walked on.
"I hate to do it!" called Tag warningly.
"Oh, you won't do it," Dick answered in a tone of calm self-assurance.
Young Prescott kept on for another hundred yards. No sound came
from behind him. Unless young Mosher were creeping upon him,
Prescott knew that he was now out of range of the shotgun.
Impelled by curiosity, Dick wheeled about Tag Mosher was nowhere
in sight.
"Either that fellow isn't half as bad as he pretends to be, or
else not half as desperate as he likes to think himself," Dick
chuckled.
Then, remembering, in a flash, the herbs that he had come to get,
the Gridley High School boy deliberately walked back to the spot
where he had left this strange vagrant of the forest.
But Tag was no longer there---not in sight, at any rate. Bending
over, Prescott collected a goodly bunch of the herbs. Then, after
glancing at his watch, he started back to camp.
It was late when he returned. Dave was back from his swim, the
table was set, and all was in readiness to sit down.
"Too late to use the herbs to-day, I guess," said Tom, as Dick
laid them down. "You were gone a long time, old fellow."
"I had quite a way to go," Dick replied quietly. Then he cut
a number of grass stalks, trimming them to different lengths.
"Fellows, I want you to draw lots. I don't feel any too much
like a walk to Five Corners after dinner, but if I get the short
straw I'll go."
"No; you'd better not try it," warned Darrin. "Your hip might
begin to give you trouble before you get back. If someone has
to go, let the other five draw."
But Dick insisted that the draw should decide it all.
"What's the matter?" asked Tom Reade shrewdly. "Have you found
traces of Tag Mosher?"
"I've seen him," Dick replied, "and talked with him. Come to
think of it, I believe two fellows had better go. The two who
are to go will be those who draw the shortest straws. All ready?"
Dick covered one end of the grass stalks, so that no one could
be sure as to which lot he drew. The lots fell to Reade and Darrin.
"Now, tell us about the meeting," begged Hazelton.
"Let's sit down and begin to eat," Prescott proposed. "As we
eat I will describe the meeting."
Plates passed rapidly until all were served. Then Dick told his
chums the story of the meeting with Tag Mosher.