“That ain’t all, you know,” said Tom Bantry. “They hev sent off a messenger to the village, and if you don’t have lively times round here, then I don’t want a picayune.”
“Perhaps we had better retreat.”
“You can’t do it; they’ve got scouts all through the woods, and you’d hev the hull posse on your backs in twenty minnits by the clock, so don’t try that on, ’square. No, it’s goin’ to be a b’ar-fight, and you can’t find a better place than this to fight in.”
“I believe the man is right,” said Melton. “I say, Folks, is your hand so bad you can’t pull a trigger?”
“Sorry to say ’tis, Cap,” replied the man; “I can’t do nothing.”
He had been hit in the hand during the fight that morning, and the cords had been so injured as to make it impossible for him to fire a rifle.
“Then you may as well let this man have your rifle, Folks,” said the captain. “I take it for granted you mean to fight?”
“Stranger, I’ve got to fight,” said Bantry. “Why, if Dick Garrett gets me, he’ll raise my wool, sure, and so, ef he does git into this camp, I’m goin’ out feet fust. That’s the way to talk it.”
“He knows you have turned against him, then?”
“Captin, he suspects it, and to suspect a man is all he wants, you know. He’ll go for me, sure.”