“I don’t see any room for argyment, as Jed Mitchell said whin——”
“Up with your hands! and drop that gun!” thundered the other, and Mike let the old rifle fall to his feet and reached up as if trying to hold the moon in place. Which incident requires an explanation.
Gerald Buxton, the father of Jim, had no sooner heard the story of his boy than he decided, as had been related, that something was wrong at the post office. He had read of the many robberies in southern Maine during the preceding summer, else he might not have been so quick to reach a conclusion. He woke his wife, told her his belief and then took down his shotgun from over the deer’s antlers in the kitchen. Both barrels were always loaded, but to make sure of no lack of ammunition, he put a number of extra shells loaded with heavy shot into his pockets.
“Remember,” he said impressively to his son, “to stay home and not show your nose outside the door while I’m gone.”
“Yaws, sir,” meekly replied Jim, who three minutes later, unseen by his mother, sneaked out of the back door and reached the battlefield directly behind his parent.
Mr. Buxton had never had any experience with house breakers, and did some quick thinking from the moment he left his front gate until he arrived on the scene. Nothing seemed more natural than that the ruffians would not approach the house from the front, but by the rear. The light which Jim saw must have come from the back part of the store. For the gang to make their entrance from the main street would have been far more dangerous.
Because of this theory, Mr. Buxton crossed the road directly before his own house, passed through the alley of a neighbor, and followed a circuitous course which compelled him to climb several back fences. But he knew all the people, and in case he was questioned could readily explain matters.
So in due time he came to the barn of one of his friends, and had turned to pass around it when to his astonishment a man dashed toward him on a dead run. Buxton was alert, and pointing his weapon, crisply commanded:
“Stop or I’ll fire!”
The panting fellow obeyed with the exclamation: