“I should say he was,” Bob managed to reply. “He ran like a deer. He knocked you flatter than a pancake, didn't he?”
“He didn't hurt me as badly as I hurt him,” said Lester. “Did you hear my club ring on his head?”
“No, but I heard you yell. You didn't strike him.”
“What's the reason I didn't? I did, too, but it must have been a glancing blow, for if I had hit him fairly, I should have knocked him flatter than he knocked me. I yelled just to frighten him.”
“I guess you succeeded, for I never saw a man run as he did. He got away, and he took the meal and bacon with him. They'll not do him any good, however, for he'll be in the calaboose by this time to-morrow, if there are men enough in the settlement to find him. I know him.”
“You do? Who was he?”
“Godfrey Evans. He's been hiding in the cane ever since he and Clarence Gordon got into that scrape, and no one has ever troubled him. But somebody will trouble him now. I'll tell my father of it the first thing. I wonder how Dave will feel when he sees his father arrested and packed off to jail?”
“I wouldn't do anything of the kind, if I were you,” said Lester.
“You wouldn't?” cried Bob, greatly astonished. “Well, I won't let this chance to be revenged on Dave slip by unimproved, now I tell you.”
“We can take revenge in a better way than that. We've got just as good a hold on him now as we want, and we'll make him promise that he will make no effort to catch those quails.”