"That's right, Cap'n Sproul," remarked the constable. "He can't even steal hens till it's dark and they can't look at him. If they turned and put their eye on him he wouldn't dare to touch 'em."
"I don't dast to be an outlaw, hey?" shrieked Mr. Luce. The vast injury that had been done him, this ruthless assault on his house, his humiliation in public, and now these wanton taunts, whipped his weak nature into frenzy. Cowards at bay are the savagest foes. Mr. Luce ran amuck!
Spurring his resolution by howling over and over: "I don't dast to be an outlaw, hey? I'll show ye!" he hastened with a queer sort of stiff-legged gallop into the field, tore away some boarding, and descended into what was evidently a hiding-place, a dry well. A moment, and up he popped, boosting a burden. He slung it over his shoulder and started toward them, staggering under its weight. It was a huge sack, with something in it that sagged heavily.
"Nice sort of an outlaw he'll make—that woodchuck!" observed Constable Nute with a cackle of mirth.
The first selectman and his supporters surveyed the approach of the furious Mr. Luce with great complacency. If Mr. Luce had emerged with a shot-gun in his fist and a knife in his teeth he might have presented some semblance of an outlaw. But this bow-legged man with a sack certainly did not seem savage. Hiram offered the humorous suggestion that perhaps Mr. Luce proposed to restore property, and thereby causing people to fall dead with astonishment would get his revenge on society.
"I warned ye and you wouldn't listen," screamed the self-declared pariah. "I said there was such a thing as squdgin' me too fur. Ye didn't believe it. Now mebbe ye'll believe that!"
He had halted at a little distance from them, and had set down his sack. He dove into it and held up a cylinder, something more than half a foot long, a brown, unassuming cylinder that certainly didn't have anything about its looks to call out all the excitement that was convulsing Mr. Luce.
"Pee-ruse that!" squealed he. "There's a lead-pencil that will write some news for ye." He shook the cylinder at them. "And there's plenty more of 'em in this bag." He curled his long lip back. "Daminite!" he spat. "I'll show ye whuther I'm an outlaw or not."
"And I know where you stole it," bawled one of the bystanders indignantly. "You stole all me and my brother bought and had stored for a season's blastin'. Constable Nute, I call on you to arrest him and give me back my property."
"Arrest me, hey?" repeated Mr. Luce. In one hand he shook aloft the stick of dynamite, with its dangling fuse that grimly suggested the detonating cap at its root. In the other hand he clutched a bunch of matches. "You start in to arrest me and you'll arrest two miles straight up above here, travellin' a hundred miles a minit."