"You lie," said Ned calmly. "You are a liar, a thief and a coward. Now give me that rifle. I am not going to ask you for it many more times."
"I won't give it to you and I don't know what keeps me from blowing your head off. I believe I will yet."
"I can tell you why you don't. Because you know there would be a hundred men on your trail who would never leave it while you were alive. Because you wouldn't dare show your face to man, woman or child, white, black or red, in Lee County or anywhere else. Because your own partner would be the first to give you up."
"He would, would he?"
"Yes, he would!" said the man referred to. "Don't be a fool, but give the kid his gun, or I will."
The rifle was handed to Ned and the boys paddled back to their camp. On the way Dick said:
"I was scared stiff, Ned, when that fellow took up his rifle and I saw how mad he was. Weren't you a little bit frightened yourself?"
"Not then. I'm a good deal scared now to think of it."
As the boys that night sat leaning against a log which they had made soft with masses of long gray moss, watching the dying out of the fire which had cooked their supper, another skiff touched at their bank, bringing the man to whom they had given the salt and also carrying the carcass of a fine buck.