“Who is ‘they’?” said I.
“Moonshiners. But they’re all on ’em up to it. Hope you’ve got your shooters?”
By this time we had started, and were driving through the twilight of the forest over a trail hardly perceptible where the wood grew scantier.
“Not I,” said I, “I never carry them.”
“Nor I,” said Coe, “I left ’em on the bureau at home.”
“All right,” said Tim, gloomily. “But most fellers like a shot of their own afore they turn their toes up.”
Miss Jeanie produced a small, pearl-handled, silver-mounted revolver, and begged me to borrow it. Miss May handed the mate of it to Coe; and young Raoul displayed a formidable pair of Smith & Wesson’s, where he was sitting with her on the back seat.
“All right,” said Tim, somewhat mollified. “But the wood’s chock full of chickers all the same.”
At this the ladies appeared really so terrified that I asked what “chickers” were, and discovered them to be a kind of insect.
“I’ve got my pennyr’yle,” said Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, who was a woman of resource.