“Rather,” said Tom. “I’m glad you’re such a bad shot. You’ve done your best, Charlie, but it’s all up. I can’t have that timber. I’m going away.”
Charlie looked up quickly, with a somber flash in his black eyes.
“You come back, Tom?” he inquired.
“I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Charlie pondered, gazing into the fire. The tea-kettle boiled. Charlie poured out the hot strong stuff into tin cups and handed one to his friend.
“You stay here, Tom,” he proposed. “We git that timber. We lay for them fellows. We can kill them all—easy.”
“No, Charlie. That wouldn’t do,” said Tom, smiling at this too simple solution. “Those fellows have got a right to the timber, and I haven’t, and that settles it. You must stop your shooting at them. You’d better go away too.”
Charlie looked depressed. Probably he had been thoroughly enjoying the guerrilla warfare of the last few days. From his sparing remarks Tom gathered that he had been continually changing his camp, prowling, scouting, feeling himself thoroughly on the warpath. He had fired on Harrison’s party several times; Tom felt devoutly thankful that nobody had been killed. Charlie had most of his smaller possessions cunningly cached in hollow logs and trees, and, on Tom’s inquiry, he went off into the darkness and presently returned with the money—a roll of bills carefully wound in birch bark. Tom would have liked to share it with this faithful comrade, but he would sorely need it all himself. He presented to Charlie, however, all the rest of his outfit: the aluminum cooking utensils, the ax, the odds and ends that had been rescued from the burning barn, and a few worn articles of clothing.
“I stay round ’bout here, Tom,” said Charlie. “You come back.”
“You’d better go and get some work,” Tom suggested. “Go down to Oakley.”