The big man, evidently realizing that he was not showing to very good advantage in losing his temper before a couple of boys, resumed his seat.
“All right,” he said, trying to make his voice sound calm, “I’ll hear what you have to say; shoot.”
“Thanks. Now in the first place you know as well as we do that that man had liquor in that jug and that he was coming up here to sell or give it to some of our men. And it isn’t the first time that it has been done either. Now, wait a minute please,” as he was about to interrupt, “let me finish and then you can have your say. I shot that jug to pieces and I claim that under the circumstances I had a perfect right to; and I give you fair warning right now that if it is tried again something worse may happen than the loss of a jug. First you tried to scare our men away with a fake ghost and then you tried to get them drunk. It’s of no use for you to deny it,” he added hastily, as he saw that Big Ben was on the point of speaking. “Now I’m done and will gladly listen to what you have to say.”
While Bob had been speaking the big man had been getting more and more red in the face, and it was plain to both of the boys that he was having all he could do to keep his temper under control.
“Do you know that I could have you arrested for assault?” he asked, making a mighty effort to keep his voice down to its natural key. “How do I know that you didn’t intend to shoot the man instead of the jug?”
“Possibly you could,” Bob replied calmly. “But just now it is a pretty serious thing to sell hooch.”
“Huh, you’ve got no evidence ag’in me on that score.”
“That’s as may be.” Bob was still perfectly calm. A fact which seemed to exasperate the big man almost to the limit of his will power. “If you think it best to have me arrested don’t hesitate on my account, but remember that I have a witness that that jug contained something besides water,” Bob reminded him.
For some time Big Ben made no reply, then he got slowly to his feet and leaned against the big table facing the boys, and now his face had recovered its friendly expression.
“All right, we’ll let it go at that,” he said. “And as for that ghost business, that was only a bit of fun on the part of some of the men. I didn’t know nothin’ about it till ’twas all over.”