It was hardly to be expected that he should go over the fence with a dance step, but he reflected that he could resume his labors immediately he dropped to the ground on the other side and faithfully maintain it to the next boundary. But there was risk and he was afraid to incur it. While still shifting his feet with an energy that caused him to breathe fast, he approached the obstruction. Partly turning his head while toiling as hard as ever, he called:
“I’ll have to stop a minute till I climb over, but I’ll resoom dancing as soon as I hit the ground on the other side agin. Is that all right?”
There was no reply and he repeated the question in a louder voice. Still hearing nothing, he ventured to look back. The young man was nowhere in sight. Truth to tell, no sooner had Mr. Buxton begun his humorous exhibition than the youth, vainly trying to suppress his mirth, flung down the gun, turned about and entered the wood toward which he was running when so abruptly checked by his pursuer.
“Wal, I’ll be hanged!” was the disgusted exclamation of the panting Buxton. “That’s the meanest trick I ever had played on me. The scand’lous villain oughter be hung. What a sight I made! I’m mighty glad no one seen me.”
In his relief, he did not notice a vague form which flitted along the edge of the wood, so close to the trees that the shadow screened it from clear view. Had Mr. Buxton noted it he might not have felt certain that no one witnessed his unrivalled performance.
He was so tired out from his tremendous efforts that he stood awhile mopping his moist forehead with his handkerchief while he regained his wind.
“It’s lucky he didn’t foller and make me dance all the way home. Never could have done it. Would have dropped dead, I am that blamed tired.”
He leaned against the fence while recovering from his unwonted exercise. Naturally he believed the young man who had used him so ill had carried away his weapon beyond possibility of recovery.
“And I paid twenty-five dollars for it in Portland,” he bitterly mused. “It looks to me that as a hunter of post office robbers I ain’t of much account.”
He resumed his walk homeward, going slowly, carefully climbing the obstructions in his path and studying what explanation to make to his friends for the loss of his valuable piece. He might manage it with all except his wife and son. It would not do to tell them he had dropped it somewhere along the road without noticing the accident. A boy might lose his pocketknife (I know of a youngster who lost a wheelbarrow and never found it again), but a double barreled shotgun manifestly could not disappear in that fashion so much out of the ordinary way of things.