"Oh, you little rascal! You beat me at the shooting-match last fall, but I reckon I've got you now. A bullet from your rifle made that there mark." The sheriff laughed, and so did Owen.
The latter then explained how he chanced to be in the woods that day, and how, by accident, he had observed the two robbers. He acknowledged, too, that a shot from his rifle had rescued Mr. Lane and the other travelers from the hands of the robbers.
"Why did you not let us know that you were up on that hill?" asked the sheriff.
"One good turn deserves another," said Owen, hesitatingly. "You helped me at the shooting-match; I helped you to capture the robbers. That made us even; So I thought that I'd say nothing about it."
"But it's strange that none of us heard the crack of your rifle."
"I scarcely heard it myself," was the boy's reply. "It seemed to me that my rifle and the robber's pistol went off at the same time."
"Won't Squire Grundy be surprised when he hears how it all happened?" said Mr. Lane.
He was certainly a happy man that night. He had not only proved that he was brave, but, by discovering the part which Owen had taken in the capture of the robbers he showed beyond a doubt that he could knit facts together in such a way as to trace out accomplices, even where the shrewd Squire failed to do so.
Owen soon found himself talking with the visitor as familiarly as if the two were on terms of equality, and had been friends for years.
"Do you know what Father Byrne called you and me when he heard that I was going to the shooting-match?" he asked.