“Shoot!” cried the one who did the talking. “We didn’t do none at all. Our guns was stole. The fellers that took ’em said they’d leave ’em with you, and I hope you’ve got ’em.”
A number of persons had now collected on the piazza, and the three boys and Adam were listening intently in the dining-room.
“Your guns stolen!” shouted the colonel. “You must be a pretty couple of fellows to let your guns be taken from you.”
“There was four of ’em that took ’em,” said the other, “and they was too many for us.”
“I should think half a good man would be too many for you two,” said the colonel, who was beginning to talk louder and louder. “How did they come to steal them?”
“They just wanted ’em, and they took ’em,” was the answer.
The other young man now considered it necessary to put in a word:
“We wasn’t just about when they took ’em. If we had been, they wouldn’t——”
“Shut up!” roared the colonel. “I can’t stand any more such lying. I know all about you, and I know your guns were not stolen from you, and that you stole John Brewer’s sail-boat, with everything in it.”
“We didn’t steal no boat,” was the surly reply. “That was a lie them fellers made up.”