In a second the constable opened the door of the store about six inches and peered out, shaking a rusty shotgun in one hand. The merchant stood behind him, looking out of the glass panel and showing an old army carbine.
“We’re armed! We’re armed!” called out the constable. “Don’t you try to come in here! You boys will get a life sentence for this!”
“This is highway robbery, and murder, and piracy!” shouted the merchant.
The boys backed away from the platform so as to be out of reach of any shot from the angle of the building and paused a second for consultation.
“We’ve got him buffaloed!” was Alex’s, first remark.
“Hadn’t we better be getting out?” Case asked. “I’ve a good mind to go in there and fill my pockets with spark plugs,” Alex declared.
“That would be a nice thing to do, wouldn’t it?” scoffed Case. “That would be larceny from a store in the daytime, and you can get fifteen years for that; and if you went into a store with a gun and put the keeper in peril of his life, you could get fifty or sixty years!”
“Then I won’t do it!” grinned Alex.
“It’s me for the Rambler!” Case declared. “It will take us until dark to get there now, and as soon as we turn our backs that bum constable will have a hundred men out after us.”
“And that means that we’ve got to hot-foot through the bushes!” Alex declared. “We can beat ’em if they don’t get dogs.”