“Well, who told you?” asked the boy.
“Never mind that now. We all know as you was fired on and that Hallibut and his gang is responsible.”
“Tell us, lad,” urged the father; “why do they want to kill you?”
Boy shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be killed themselves, dad,” he answered.
Paisley chuckled.
“That’s the way to talk, by gosh,” he said, bringing his fist down. “There’s goin’ to be fightin’—there can’t help but be fightin’. It’s gotter be first drop and make every shot count from this time forward.”
“I don’t like it; no, I don’t like it,” sighed Big McTavish. “Why do people want to come here and molest us? Why do they want to shoot my boy down? Ain’t we humans, I wonder?”
Boy sprang up and climbed the attic ladder in search of dry clothes.
“Listen, Mac,” said Paisley, hitching his chair forward and pinching off a pipeful of Canada-Green, “there are two reasons why they want to kill us off. They want to own this little world of ours, and they hope to drive us back into the bush like they are drivin’ the deer and turkeys. They ain’t thinkin’ a Bushwhacker’s life is worth a great deal. I’ve studied this thing out purty well, and I’ve concluded that we’ve got to stand up for our own. Jim and Ander here think the same. You might as well fall in with our views, Mac, and if they want fightin’, give it to ’em.”