"You're a mighty sassy fellow," scowled young Mosher.
"I'm very disobliging sometimes," Prescott admitted. "For instance, Tag, I won't believe that you're half as bad as you try to paint yourself."
"Bad?" snorted young Mosher, with something of sullen pride in his voice. "I'm about as mean as they make them. You know what they say I did to that farmer?"
"Well, did you?" challenged Prescott.
"I'm not saying," came the gruff answer. "For one thing, it wouldn't do me a bit of good to deny it. When a fellow has a bad name everywhere any judge and jury will hang him. Now, I happen to object to being hanged, or even to being locked up for perhaps twenty or thirty years. Queer in me, isn't it?"
"What you ought to do," pursued Dick, "and what you will do, if you are brave and manly, is to drop that gun, face about, and march yourself back to jail."
"And be locked up some more?" quivered Tag in excitement.
"If you're guilty of assaulting Mr. Leigh, you should be also brave and manly enough to walk back to jail, ready to pay the price of your act like a man. If you're not guilty, then you should be man enough to face the world and prove your innocence like a real man. Don't be a cowardly sneak, Tag!"
"A coward?" blurted the other angrily. "You ought to know better'n that. And the officers know better, too; I may be only a boy, but the officers are out in packs, hunting for me. I know, for I've seen two pairs of those fellows go by on the road to-day."
"Are you going to be a man, Tag, or just a sneaking coward?" asked
Dick, as he rose.