“They slipped out ahead, and are hurrying down there. You had better take another way home. They are awful mad, and will knock the stuffing out of you.”
Ben Mayberry smiled over the earnest words and manner of the boy, and thanked him for his information.
“Don’t let ’em know I told you,” added the timid fellow, as Ben moved out the door; “for if they find out that it was me that was the cause of your going the other way home, why, they’d punch my head for me. That Richmond, they say, is a reg’lar fighter—has science, and can lay out anybody of his size.”
“They will never know you said anything to me, Ned, for I shall take the usual way, and will be slow, so as to give them plenty of time to get there ahead of me.”
The little fellow looked wonderingly at Ben as he walked away, unable to comprehend how anyone should step into a yawning chasm after being warned of his peril.
CHAPTER XV
AN AFFRAY AT NIGHT
Ben Mayberry was so desirous that Rutherford Richmond and his brother conspirator should be given all the time they needed to complete their scheme for waylaying and assaulting him, that he lingered on the road longer than was really necessary.