ARTHUR'S READY RIFLE.
Knowing nothing of the fears that disturbed the minds of the miller
and his wife Joe and his friends slept soundly, and after an early
breakfast resumed their journey with light hearts; but there was
something in Mr. Hudson's manner, more than in his words, when he bade
them good-by that made the boys wonder if he had anything on his mind
that he was keeping from them.
"You've had the best kind of luck so far and I hope it may continue;
but I don't know," said he, kicking a pebble out of the path. "Looks
to me as though wheeling through a country that you are not acquainted
with, and going among people you don't know anything about, is mighty
risky business. If I was your folks, I'd be sort o' uneasy till I saw
you safe back."
"I don't know whether we've had the best kind of luck so far or not,"
said Arthur, as the three lifted their caps to the miller's wife and
wheeled away. "What would he say if he knew about Roy's long swim in
New London harbor?"
"Or about Joe's wild ride over that trestle?" chimed in Roy. "Of course
he had good luck in getting over without a broken head, but it was bad
luck that brought him into the scrape."
"Mr. Hudson probably had reference to the dangers of wheeling, and not
to anything else," replied Joe. "I wouldn't give a cent to go on a trip
of this kind if we did not pass through a strange country and see new
faces at every mile of the way. Now for a coast; the first we have had
since we struck this lovely road. Look out for heads everybody."
"And for the corduroy bridge at the bottom of the hill," added Arthur,
quoting from the guide-book.
The latter faithfully warned them of all the bad places that were to be
found in the road when its author passed that way two years before,
but it was silent on the subject of some things that were more to be
feared than sticks, stones, and corduroy bridges. They encountered two
of them about three o'clock that afternoon, when they thought they
ought to be within a mile or two of Glen's Falls. Joe Wayring, who was
leading the way, was the first to discover them. They were vagabond
dogs which came slowly out of the thick bushes on one side of the
road, dragging after them something that proved to be the carcass of a
freshly slaughtered sheep.
Now if there was anything in the world that Joe was afraid of it was
an ugly dog; and that these brutes were ugly as well as bold (if
they hadn't been bold they would not have killed that sheep in broad
daylight) was quickly made apparent. The minute Joe came within sight
of them he sounded his bell, whereupon the dogs dropped their prey and
raised their heads; but instead of taking themselves off, as my master
thought they would, they stood their ground, snarling and showing their
white, gleaming fangs as a welcome to the advancing wheelman.
"By gracious! They want a fight!" exclaimed Joe.
"All right. They can have it," replied Roy. "Sheep-killing dogs have no
rights that any one is bound to respect, and these villains have been
caught in the act."
"Down with them," cried Arthur, whipping his ready rifle from its case
before his wheel fairly came to a standstill. "We've more right to the
road than they have, and if they won't let us go by--"
"Don't do anything hasty," interrupted Joe. "Think of the reputation of
the people to whom these brutes undoubtedly belong, and bear in mind
that we've got to go through Glen's Falls or turn back."
"We haven't come almost fifty miles over the worst road in the United
States to be turned back now," answered Roy. "Did anybody ever see
uglier looking things, I wonder?" he added, as the two yellow,
stump-tailed dogs, with their dripping lips raised, and their short
ears laid back close to their heads, crouched upon the body of the
sheep like panthers preparing for a spring. "Let's see what effect a
stone will have upon their courage."
By this time the young wheelmen had dismounted; they had to, for the
savage beasts had possession of the road. There was room enough on
one side to run by them, and Joe and his friends would have made the
attempt if they had had any reason to suppose that the dogs would
remain close to the sheep while they were doing it; but that would be
taking too much risk. If the dogs jumped at them while they were going
by, no matter whether they succeeded in laying hold of one of their
number or not, they would be pretty certain to throw somebody from
his saddle, and then there would be trouble. The unfortunate sheep's
throat looked as though it had been cut with a knife, and that proved
that their long teeth were sharp. Joe and Arthur were not in favor of
beginning a fight with the dogs, hoping that if they were left alone
they would drag the sheep across the road and into the woods on the
other side; but before they could say or do anything to prevent it,
Roy Sheldon made one of his sure, left-hand shots; a heavy stone took
one of the canine vagabonds plumb in the mouth and tumbled him over
backward.
"Whoop-pee! That was a bully shot, Jakey," yelled Roy, recalling some
of the incidents of the first battle he and his chums had with Matt
Coyle and his family. "Throw another, Jakey. Great Scott! They're
coming for us."
That was plain enough to boys who could see as well as Joe and Arthur
could. The stone certainly had an effect upon them, for they no longer
stood on the defensive. They charged at once, the stricken brute
leading the way, and his companion keeping close at his heels. I tell
you the sight they presented was enough to frighten anybody, unless his
nerves were made of steel, as mine were, but we did not run. I couldn't
without help, and Joe and his chums wouldn't. In less time than it
takes to tell it one of the charging brutes was knocked flat by a
second stone from Roy's unerring hand, and the other fell with a bullet
in his brain, shot fairly in the eye by Arthur Hastings's pocket rifle.
But the death of his companion and the crack of the cartridge did
not take the fight out of the surviving dog. Almost stunned as he was,
he sprang up again in an instant, only to be floored by Joe Wayring. A
second later Arthur's little rifle spoke again, and this time the dog
did not get up. He was as dead as the sheep he had helped pull out of
the bushes.
[Illustration: The Death of Matt Coyle's Dogs.]
"This is rather ahead of my time," said Joe, who was the first to
speak. "I never dreamed that domestic dogs could be so savage. Why, a
couple of wild-cats or panthers couldn't have made a worse fight, nor
frightened me more," he added, lifting his cap and wiping the big drops
of perspiration from his forehead. "I hope this is the last of it, but
I'm afraid it isn't."
Before Joe's friends had time to ask him what he meant, or to recover
from the nervousness into which they had been thrown by the sudden
onset of the sheep-killers, they heard a great crashing in the bushes,
which were so thick on both sides of the road that one could not see
any object in them at the distance of ten feet, and a heavy voice
called out:
"So you've come again, have you? Three on you this time 'stead of
one. All right. I'll be there directly. I'm coming jest as fast as the
bresh'll let me."
"There comes the owner of these dogs," said Joe. "Now we are in for it
sure."
"Who cares?" replied Roy. "If he thinks we are going to stand still and
let his ferocious dogs eat us up, he don't know us; that's all."
Meanwhile the noise in the bushes grew louder, and now a tall, heavily
built man forced his way out and stepped into the middle of the road.
"Come again, have you?" was the way in which he greeted the boys. "And
brung two fellers with you to help. Wal, you'll need 'em all. Take me,
if you want to. See!" he went on rapidly, laying his rifle upon the
ground and standing erect with his arms spread out as if to show that
he had no other weapon about him. "I'll put my shooting-iron outen
my hands and ask you again to take me if you have come here for that
purpose. I double-dare you to lay a finger on me. Come now!"
A blind man could have told by the tones of his voice that the
new-comer was "as full of mad as he could hold"; so very angry in fact,
that he scarcely took two looks at the boys to whom he was talking
until after he had laid down his rifle and spread out his arms. When
he saw that he was confronting a trio of boys, and not bearded men, he
dropped his hands and gave utterance to two emphatic words; but as they
were swear-words I don't repeat them.
"Who did you think we were?" inquired Joe, who saw at once that the
broad-shouldered backwoodsman had make a mistake.
"I took you for jest what I thought you was--the detective that come up
here on one of them two-wheeled wagons and run my pardner to earth like
a woodchuck in his hole," said the man, nodding at the bicycles. "But
you ain't, be you?"
"Of course we are not officers," answered Roy. "We are tourist-wheelmen
traveling for pleasure."
"Oh," said the man, in a rather doubtful tone, as if he did not quite
understand what the boys were, after all. Then he turned his head over
his shoulder and shouted at the woods: "It is all right, boys, and
you can come along without shooting. You see," he went on, as another
crashing in the bushes told Joe and his friends that there were more
men coming, "I seen you from my place up there on the mounting when
you crossed over the brook below, and I was kinder laying for you.
Understand? These here fellers are pardners of mine," he continued, as
two stalwart woodsmen presented themselves to view. "They was laying
back there in the bresh where they had a fair squint at you; if you'd a
put a finger on to me when I dropped my rifle and told you to come on,
some of you would have been deader now than them dogs you plumped over.
What did you do it with? I heared something pop like a gun-cap, and
over them dogs went."
Arthur Hastings handed over his rifle because he held it in plain
sight, and did not think it would be prudent to do anything else. The
man seemed to grow friendly as soon as he was satisfied that the boys
were not detectives who had come to the mountains for the purpose of
arresting him, and Arthur was afraid that if anything were done to
excite his rage, he might become as savage as the dogs from whose fangs
he and his chums had been saved by his good shooting.
The man took the pocket rifle with many exclamations of wonder and
amusement, and while he and his "pardners" were giving it a good
looking-over, Arthur and his friends improved the opportunity to
take an equally close survey of the mountaineers; but there was some
apprehension mingled with their curiosity, for they knew, as well as
they knew anything, that they were in the presence of some of the
Buster band. The first one who showed himself was Dave Daily, the
leader of the band, who had been in hiding for a year or so to escape
arrest.
"That's a mighty cute little trick of a gun," said the latter, when he
handed back the pocket rifle. "But you wouldn't like to bet a dollar
that she can beat my deer-killer at the distance of a hundred yards,
would you? No, I don't reckon you would, because you would be certain
sure to lose your dollar. Do you know who's talking to you?" he added,
abruptly.
Joe replied that they not only knew his name, but that they had heard
something about him down at Dorchester; and then he wondered why the
man did not say something about the dogs that were lying in plain
sight. Did they belong to him, and was he going to raise a fuss with
his friend Arthur for shooting them? If he did, there would be but one
way out of the scrape, and that was to pay the man every cent he chose
to demand for the worthless brutes.
"I'll bet you didn't hear nothing good about us down Dorchester way,"
said Daily, for it was he. "But I'll tell you what is a fact: We're not
the terrible chaps that some folks would try to make you think we are.
So long as everybody minds their own business and lets us alone, so
long do we mind our business and let other folks be. Set down a while,"
he added, growing communicative, "and I'll tell you jest how the fuss
commenced in the first place."
There was nothing for it but to comply with this request, for Daily
did not look or speak like a man who would take "no" for an answer
unless he felt like it. So the boys leaned their wheels against
convenient trees, seated themselves by Daily's side under the shade of
another, while his two friends stretched their heavy frames upon the
leaves close by, and the leader went on with his story.
"Us and our folks was raised right here in this neck of woods, we've
always lived here, and we don't know no other country outside," said
he. "We never had no fuss with nobody so long as we was let alone. We
cultivated our little craps, shot our meat in the woods when we wanted
it, ketched our trout in the brooks, sot lines through the ice for
pickerel in winter, went to school when we wanted to, and were happy
like the Injuns was before the white man come to this country and
drove them out. First thing we knew, some fellers down in Washington,
wherever that is, kicked up a war with somebody else, and sent word to
our folks that they'd got to come and help fight it out. Well, they
wouldn't do it, our folks wouldn't, because it wasn't their fight,
they hadn't no hand in getting it up, they didn't care which one
whipped, and so they said they'd stay to home. Then what does them big
fellers in Washington do but send an officer of some sort up here to
take down the names of all of us, except the little boys, so't they
could be drafted into the army. Our folks told him he wasn't wanted
here and that he'd better go home, but he wouldn't, and so they run him
out and everybody like him who came here afterwards."
"In short, you resisted the draft," said Joe.
"You're right we did, and we'll do it again," said Daily, in savage
tones. "Whenever we raise a fight amongst ourselves, we stick to it
till one or t'other gets licked; but we don't take up outsiders'
quarrels. Well, that was where the fuss commenced, and for as much
as four years our folks had to keep hid in the mountings so't them
drafting officers couldn't get a hold of 'em. When the war was over
we thought we should have peace and be let alone like we was before;
but we wasn't. Some smart Alecks, who had been elected to go to the
Capital, and who had never been up here, passed a law--without once
asking us, mind you--that deer shouldn't be killed at such and such
times; that trout mustn't be ketched only jest when they said so; and
that if we didn't give some heed to them laws, they would take us up
and put us in jail. Well, they tried it, and how did they come out?
Tell me that, will you?"
"At the little end of the horn," said one of the "pardners," who had
thus far kept silent.
"You're right they did, Spence; at the little end of the horn,"
exclaimed Daily. "And that's the way everybody will come out who takes
it upon himself to make laws for us. We're free Amerikin citizens and
we mean to keep so. We don't ask no outsiders to make laws for us,
because we can take care of ourselves. We kept right along jest as
we had always been doing, shooting deer whenever we wanted the meat
(violating the law they called it), and one night Zeb Harris and me was
took outen our beds and slapped into the jail down at Machias. You see
we didn't have no jail up here at Glen's Falls, because we never needed
such a thing. We knew well enough who it was that complained of us, for
our friends kept us posted; so I writ him a little letter telling him
what Zeb and me allowed to do as soon as we got out. We did get out
pretty quick, and somehow everything happened to him jest as we said
it would. While I was in jail I writ to the papers about it, so't the
folks outside could know how we had been treated and trod upon, and all
my pieces was published jest as I writ 'em. Don't believe it, do you?"
said Daily, thrusting his hand into an inside pocket and pulling out a
greasy note-book. "I want you to understand that I can write as well
as anybody, even if I haven't had much schooling, and when it comes to
poetry, I don't give in to no living man on top of the broad earth.
Look at that, and see if you can beat it with all your education."
As Daily said this he placed in Roy Sheldon's hands a clipping from
a newspaper, with the request that he would "read her out loud so't
everybody could hear it." The boy found that it was going to be a
task to read it at all, for the paper had been so often and so roughly
handled that in some places the words were quite obliterated. The poem,
if that was the right name for the chief law-breaker's effusion, was
nearly a column in length, and it required no little effort on Roy's
part to make out the first two verses of it. They ran as follows:
"it was in the town of glens fals
as you shal understand
thair lived a crowd of young men
thay was cald the buster band
and thay was accused of menny
a bad deed let them be gilty or not
but thay hunted deer the year round
and for the wardens made it hot
thair was one young man among them
the wardens all knew wel
and by this felows rifl
thair was menny a fine deer fel
he hunted upon an old stream
i would have you all to know
and sed that that was one place
the wardens dast not go"
"What was the reason the wardens dared not go there?" inquired Arthur,
when Roy handed back the paper declaring that the letters were so dim
he could not make sense out of the rest of it. "What were they afraid
of?"
"Of me. I was up there," answered Daily, who seemed to think he had
done something very brave when he concealed himself in the woods and
sent word back to the settlement that he would fire upon the first
officer who came along his trail to arrest him. "I tell you it wasn't
healthy around where I was about that time for anybody but me and my
friends. If you don't believe it, read that."
With the words another choice bit of composition was thrust into Roy's
hand. It proved to be a warning to one of the recently appointed
wardens that the Buster band, having "commenced the fun" by burning the
house of the man who had dared to enter complaint against Dave Daily
and his friend Zeb Harris, would keep it up by visiting the home of
the warden if he did not at once throw up his office and let unlawful
deer-hunters alone. There was still a third clipping which proved of
more interest to the boys than either of the others, for it related
to the detective who had come to Glen's Falls on his wheel. It was
addressed to the very man whose house they had intended to make their
headquarters during their stay at the Falls. It ran thus:
"Mr. Jon Homes:--if you keep that black whiskered felow with the nee
britches about your house any longer you will have roast pig to and
in short order we know he is a detektive be cause he has been talking
with one of our boys who he thinks is a spy on us in the pay of what
you call the law and order sosiation but thair ant no spies amongst
our crowd i want you to understand git rid of him for if you dont
you will be burnt out before a week goes by we have started the fun
and we will keep it up we mean bisness git rid of him and your all
rite if you dont down she comes by the time you git this we shal have
taken some of your stock as proof that we mean bisiness, from a frind
remember."
By the time Roy Sheldon had finished reading this precious document he
and his two friends were so angry that they could scarcely refrain from
telling Dave Daily what they thought of so mean and cowardly a villain
as these productions of his proved him to be. Joe Wayring showed very
plainly that he had had quite enough of this nonsense. He got upon his
feet, brushed the leaves from his clothes, and remarked that it was
high time he and his chums were moving.
"What's your hurry?" inquired Dave. "You can't find no better company
than we be anywhere about the Falls. Where do you stop when you get
there, seeing there ain't no hotel to put up at?"
"We're not going to put up at the Falls," replied Joe. "We shall stop
there just long enough to buy a glass of milk or beg a drink of water
of somebody, and then we shall take to the road for a ten-mile run
before dark."
"Those dogs over there," said Roy, jerking his head toward the
prostrate animals, "disputed the right of way with us, and when I tried
to drive them out of the road they came at us with such fury that we
had to shoot them in self-defense. I hope they don't belong to any of
you?"
Roy said this, not because he cared a straw who owned the worthless
curs, but for the reason that he felt some curiosity to know why Daily
and his companions were so very indifferent regarding them and their
fate. He had looked for a row the minute the men saw the bodies of
the four-footed vagabonds; but instead of that, the woodsmen had not
referred to the matter since they asked to see the weapon with which
the shooting was done.
"No; the dogs don't belong to none of us nor the sheep, neither,"
answered Daily. "Do you see them letters on the critter's head all
mixed up together? That's Holmes's mark, and them dogs or any others
are welcome to kill all the sheep he's got, for all we care. We don't
like him none too well, for he harbored that detective till we told
him to shove him out, and he would be one of the wardens if he wasn't
afraid. Matt'll be staving blind mad when he hears of it, and mebbe
you'd best keep outen his way when you get started, for he'll make you
pay ten times what the critters was fairly worth. He sets a heap of
store by them, for he brought 'em up here for watch-dogs to tell him
when there was anybody coming to his shanty."
"Did you say _Matt_ would be mad?" asked Joe, with a strange look on
his face. "Matt who? What is his other name?"
"His whole name is Matt Coyle," replied Daily.