“Yes we will—not,” Bob replied. “We know how much our lives would be worth if you had one of these guns.”
“But I swar I’ll not hurt you,” Nip began, but Bob interrupted him.
“Save your breath, Nip. I wouldn’t believe you on a stack of Bibles a mile high. Some time when you’re in Skowhegan stop round and you can have them both, but now they stay with us.”
“But the wolves. I will have nothing to protect myself with.”
This was a phase of the matter which had not occurred to either of the boys. To leave even such a man as Nip defenseless in the wilderness when they knew that there was a very real danger from wolves was a serious proposition, and on the other hand, to give him one of the revolvers was, they felt, little less than suicide.
“What had we better do?” Bob asked.
“Search me,” Jack replied, with a shake of his head.
“Give me de gun and you’ll never see me again,” Nip promised in a pleading tone.
“Not for a minute,” Bob said sternly. “Whatever else we do, it won’t be that.”
Bob motioned to Jack to step back a few feet, and for several minutes they talked in low tones. Finally they made up their minds what to do, and coming back to where Nip was standing, Bob said: