"I am not rich. Before I turn soldier I work in a mill at Bridgeport."
"That's all very well, but you can't get out of it by referring to your past. Just now you are a proxy of the rich, and it's my duty to rob you."
The mouth of the big fellow expanded into a wide grin.
"You won't rob me," he said. "I have not a cent."
"But I'm going to rob you just the same. Don't you dare to drop a hand toward the pistols in your belt. If you do I'll blow your head off. I'm covering you with a double-barreled shotgun. Each barrel contains about twenty buckshot, and at close range their blast would be so terrific that you'd make an awful looking corpse."
"I hold up my hands a long time. Don't want to be any kind of a corpse."
"That's the good boy. Steady now. Don't move a muscle. I'm going to rob you. It's a brief and painless operation, much easier than pulling a tooth."
He deftly removed the two pistols and the accompanying ammunition from the man's belt, placing them in his own. His belt of cartridges he put on the ground beside the fallen rifle, and then as he felt a glow of triumph he passed the well-filled knapsack from the stalwart shoulders of the other to his own shoulders, equally stalwart.
"Is everything in it first class, Michael?" he demanded with much severity.
"The best. Our army feeds well."