“Well, you don't get him,” said Hale quietly. “He's our prisoner. Keep back!” he repeated, motioning with the barrel of his shotgun—and young Buck moved backward to his own men, The old man saw Hale and another man—the sergeant—go inside the heavy gate of the stockade. He saw a boy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand and a strapped set of books in the other, come running up to the men with the shotguns and he heard one of them say angrily:
“I told you not to come.”
“I know you did,” said the boy imperturbably.
“You go on to school,” said another of the men, but the boy with the cap shook his head and dropped his books to the ground. The big gate opened just then and out came Hale and the sergeant, and between them young Dave—his eyes blinking in the sunlight.
“Damn ye,” he heard Dave say to Hale. “I'll get even with you fer this some day”—and then the prisoner's eyes caught the horses and shotguns and turned to the group of Falins and he shrank back utterly dazed. There was a movement among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his other pistol and with a grim smile got ready. Young Buck had turned to his crowd:
“Men,” he said, “you know I never back down”—Devil Judd knew that, too, and he was amazed by the words that followed-“an' if you say so, we'll have him or die; but we ain't in our own state now. They've got the law and the shotguns on us, an' I reckon we'd better go slow.”
The rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and, as they put their pistols up, Devil Judd laughed in his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse and the little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away toward the county-seat.
The crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way after they had taken a parting shot at the Hon. Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in his hand. Young Buck looked long at him—and then he laughed:
“You, too, Sam Budd,” he said. “We folks'll rickollect this on election day.” The Hon. Sam deigned no answer.
And up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe and sat down to think out the strange code of ethics that governed that police-guard. Hale had told him to wait there, and it was almost noon before the boy with the cap came to tell him that the Falins had all left town. The old man looked at him kindly.