I showed him my duck-gun with its silver mountings, and he smiled a little.
"Haven't you a rifle?" he demanded.
I explained that my husband had, and he still stood squinting out through the doorway as I poked about the shack-corners and found Dinky-Dunk's repeater. He was a very authoritative and self-assured young man. He took the rifle from me, examined the magazine and made sure it was loaded. Then he handed it back.
"I've got to search those buildings and stacks," he told me. "And I can only be in one place at once. If you see a man break from under cover anywhere, when I'm inside, be so good as to shoot him!"
He started off without another word, with his big army revolver in his hand. My teeth began to do a little fox-trot all by themselves.
"Wait! Stop!" I shouted after him. "Don't go away!"
He stopped and asked me what was wrong. "I—I don't want to shoot a man! I don't want to shoot any man!" I tried to explain to him.
"You probably won't have to," was his cool response. "But it's better to do that than have him shoot you, isn't it?"
Whereupon Mr. Red-Coat made straight for the hay-stacks, and I stood in the doorway, with Dinky-Dunk's rifle in my hands and my knees shaking a little.
I watched him as he beat about the hay-stacks. Then I got tired of holding the heavy weapon and leaned it against the shack-wall. I watched the red coat go in through the stable door, and felt vaguely dismayed at the thought that its wearer was now quite out of sight.