McTavish shook his head.
“It’s a terrible thing to take life,” he declared, “an awful thing. I’d give in first and be driven into the lake before I’d shoot a man down. No, Bill, I can’t take up a gun again’ a human nohow.”
Jim Peeler attempted to speak and Paisley lifted his hand.
“There’s another reason,” he whispered, peering at the dark attic door. “I’m goin’ to tell you the reason now, Mac, although I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.” He drew the big man into a corner and spoke to him in an undertone.
“What!” Big McTavish sprang erect, his beard fairly bristling. “What do they want to do that for?”
He gazed about him with flashing eyes, and Paisley laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Boy mus’n’t know—remember,” he cautioned.
“Bill,” said McTavish hoarsely, “if that’s what Hallibut would do, why of course I’ll fight him.”
“That’s the talk,” nodded Paisley. “But, of course, it may be all a scare game, and maybe they shot at Boy just ’cause they thought they’d scare us into sellin’ our timber to ’em for a mere nothin’. I don’t think there’s an ounce of sand in the whole parcel of ’em myself.”
“Who told you I was shot at, Ander?” said Boy, rejoining the men. “I didn’t intend to worry anybody by tellin’ about it. There wasn’t anybody near. It was down on Oak Ridge. I was comin’ in from the bay that way to have a look at my turkey-traps. It was near the middle trap that this thing happened. There wasn’t anybody near, except the one that did the shootin’—that I know of.”