A FLAG OF TRUCE.
The younger man reached the bottom the sooner, and sitting down began to
shy pebbles at a bowlder a few yards below, to see how far they would
glance.
Bob came lumbering down the slope of loose stones, took a seat pretty
near Len, and slowly drawing his knife from his pocket, opened it with
great deliberation and began to whittle at a bit of spruce bark.
Nothing was said for some time, and neither took any notice of the
other. Each was waiting for his opponent to begin. At last the eager
disposition of the young Virginian, who never could bear to waste time
in going about whatever he had to do, and who in consequence had often
exemplified the maxim “more haste less speed,” overcame his reserve and
broke the silence.
“Well, Bob,” he began in a careless manner, “I never expected to see you
in as mean a scrape as this.”
If our embassador had studied over it for a week, he could not have made
a remark which would better serve his purpose. Bob had long deemed
himself a very wily old dog indeed. He had boasted of this to his
associates more than once, and had assured them that they would see how,
on this occasion, he would “argify and bamboozle that young cub of a
Bushwick” until, figuratively speaking, he had tied him all up in a
bundle and laid him away on a shelf in safe storage.
But Len’s cool remark, driving straight home to the very heart and
spirit of all his pretensions, let the wind out of Old Bob’s behavior
and arguments together. It angered him in an instant, and when a
diplomat gets angry he loses his power. Instead of the soft words and
sly reasoning by which he had hoped to fool his antagonist into opening
his doors to the treachery which it was intended should follow; instead
of the pretty speeches which Bob had carefully thought out and talked
over, came furious retorts, bad language, and threats, to which Len
listened with the utmost composure.
The substance of it all was, that Bob and his precious accomplices had
jumped the mine, and yet they hadn’t jumped it, rightly speaking,
because they had as much right there as anybody. The claim had been
abandoned, and if anybody had gone to work at it why that was at their
own risk, and they mustn’t complain when another man came along and took
it away from the first party.
“Now I’ve got this yere ’Rora mine,” Bob shouted excitedly, “and I’m
goin’ to keep it, don’t you forget that! An’ wot’s more, my friend Mr.
Stevens is agoin’ to jump that claim you’re holdin’ now, ’n’ that cabin.
That cabin belonged to my friend Pickens, ’n’ he told me, before he went
away, that if I wanted it I could have it, and I can prove it.”
“Now,” Bob kept on, “you young roosters ’d better give up and crawl out.
We’ll give you a chance to get away and take your blankets and things if
you’ll quit peaceable-like and git out. We don’t want no trouble, nor
nobody hurted.”
“Then why did you put a ball into our doorpost?” interrupted his
listener.
“Scotty did that. I told him’t wa’n’t on the squar, an’ ’twas kinder
haxidental anyhow. If you’ll quit shootin’ at us we wont shoot at
you,--an’ _I_ wouldn’t nohow.”
“We haven’t fired a shot.”
“You’re jist ready to all the time,” Bob persisted, “so’s we gentlemen
can’t work our property for fear of you.”
“You ‘gentlemen’! Your ‘property’!” repeated Lennox, with infinite
scorn.
“Yes, ours. And, as I was sayin’, we’ll go to town and get help, if we
arn’t enough alone, and we’ll bounce you out o’ that cabin which we want
for ourselves, and you may thank your stars if you yet out with whole
skins. The hull filin’ of ye must pack up and scoot ’fore sundown.”
“That’s rather sudden,” Len pleaded; “can’t you give us till to-morrow
morning? It looks like it was going to rain to-night.”
“Well, we don’t want to be rough on young chaps like you, though you’re
too cheeky for these parts,” Bob conceded, thinking he had frightened
the lad; “and we wont crowd ye to-night. But, by this, that and the
other! if you don’t skip out early to-morrow you’ll hear from us, you
bet!”
“All right!” Len rejoined. “I’ll tell the boys. I’m glad you gave us
till to-morrow to get out, for it looks mighty like a storm to-night.”
It required only a very brief report from Lennox to acquaint the firm
with what Bob had threatened, and, no doubt, would try to carry out.
“They have no suspicion,” Len asserted, “that Morris is with us, and it
will be a good thing if we can continue to keep it secret.”
“They’ll find it out mighty sudden and pointed-like,” muttered Morris,
“if they don’t play cautious.”
There was a pause for a moment or two, until Len remarked that he
supposed something should be said, or the enemy would think they
intended to act upon Bob’s bluster and abandon the claim, “which, of
course, nobody thinks of doing for an instant.”
“I understand it’s ours, fair and square,” said Sandy, “and sin’
possession’s nine points of the law, we might as well haud on for the
other point. I remember that my grandfeyther used to say to us
bairns,--‘better to keep the deil wi’oot the door, than drive him oot o’
the hoose.’ I’m thinking, though, I’d like to take that gambler-man by
the nape of his neck and gie him the name of an auld Scotch dance down
the bank,--I mean the Highland _fling_, ye ken?”
Max did not join in the laugh; in his despondent way, he was filled with
hesitation which none of the others felt. Had he been quite alone, I’m
not sure how much he might have wavered, postponed, and yielded; but
while all were waiting for him to say something, a shout came across
from the other dump:
“What’re you fellers a-goin’ to do?”
Len was roused. The indignation he had repressed hitherto now came to
the surface.
“I’ll show those miserable sneaks that they can’t bluff _me_!” he
exclaimed; and springing upon a heap of stones, he yelled back:
“You know you lied about your right to this mine. We bought it and we’re
going to keep it. If you want it you’ve got to take it, and you’d better
look right sharp after your own stake. This is ‘what we’re a-goin’ to
do!’”
“Well,” said Max, as the excited lad leaped down out of rifle-range,
“you’ve declared war for certain, and I imagine we’ll have to fight it
out on this line if it takes all--”
“Don’t say ‘summer’; there’s snow and frost enough in this wind to
furnish a Virginia January.”
“Well--all Winter, then. But they wont try it on--they know better.”
Evidently Max’s indecisions were over.
“No,” Morris agreed, “I don’t think they’ll attack by themselves, but
they can make about as much trouble for you by simply staying there.”
“Besides,” Sandy put in, “one of ’em’ll start to town as soon as it
comes dark, and na doot can find plenty o’ their own kind, who wad like
na better sport than to join in a scheme o’ this nature.”
“I can put a stop to that,” said Morris.
“How?”
“Nobody’ll try to get away till night, and by that time I’ll be down
there to stop him, whoever he is, and send him back again with a flea in
his ear.”
“How will you get down the cañon without their spotting you?”
“I’ll climb up the cliff and work my way down about a quarter of a mile
away. I know a spot that’ll suit me to a T. I wish Buckeye Jim was
here, we’d make a break for those jumpers and clean out the whole nest
in no time. He’d ought to a’ been here before this. Mebbe he’s in town
now--there’s no telling.”
“Likely enough Mr. Anderson is there by this time, too,” said Len.
“Why, would it not be a good plan, borrowing a hint from the adversary,
for one of us to go to town and be ready to hasten these gentlemen, or
perhaps get assistance otherwise?”
It was Sandy who made this suggestion, to which, at first, there was
only silent attention.
“I’m thinkin’ that the three of us left can stand off, as ye say, those
fellows yonder, and if we can manage to hold ’em all in, our agent would
come back with an overwhelming force and put ’em wholly to rout.”
“I guess you’re right, Sandy--but who shall go?”
“Weel, I’m vera willing to do that, or anything as ye weel ken, but I’m
so much of a stranger in town, that probably I could be of more use
here.”
“I reckon I’m your man,” said Len. “Max and Morris are both too heavy
weights to be spared from the garrison, while I can do as well on this
errand as any one else, I suppose.”
“It’s no fun for you to walk all the way down that mountain trail, with
the weather so threatening, but undoubtedly you might gain a great deal
for us,” Max interposed.
“If he didn’t get any more men to come up,” Morris suggested, “he might
be able to stop the other crowd’s getting any recruits.”
“Yes, that’s so. When shall I start?”
“The sooner the better,” said Max and Sandy in the same breath.
“Meaning after dark this evening,” added Morris. “You go along down with
me, and mebbe I’ll show you a bit of fun to cheer you up. It’ll be early
moonlight; you wont have a bad tramp.”
SOME DANGEROUS TARGET PRACTICE.