"Jenkins! Jenkins!"
In a few moments Jenkins, also carrying a gun, stepped into view.
"Well, Jenkins," shouted Buck, a sneer in his tone as well as in his words, "that nice little Sunday-school game of burnin' the roof over our heads didn't come off, after all. I reckon we was too quick for you."
"Now, Buck Hardy," cried Jenkins, "you ought to know I wouldn't stand for nothin' o' that sort."
"You're in with a bad crowd, Jenkins. Well, what do them yellow dogs in the bushes behind you aim to do?"
"I'd ruther see nothin' done. The whole thing is crazy. I say, let you fellows go out without any trouble. That's the only thing to do, I say."
"But your yellow dogs don't agree, one of 'em 'specially—the one that wanted to burn us out. I know who he is, and I've a good mind to walk right over there and break every bone in his body."
There was a sudden rustling of the palmettos behind Jenkins that seemed to indicate preparation for war. Noting this, Peters and Jones leveled their guns through their own palmettos without exposing the muzzles to the view of the watchers in the opposite leafy fort. The two boys and the negro looked and listened with all their eyes and ears, their excitement now intense. But Buck Hardy stood in a careless pose, gun in hand, as before.
"Jenkins," he said, "if you've got any influence with Carter and Thatcher, talk to 'em. Then stack all your guns against that big pine. Then we'll stack our guns where you can see 'em. Then I'll walk over there empty-handed and wipe up the ground with Zack James. Let that settle it. I'll be satisfied."
Jenkins had no time to speak, even if ready with a reply. The last word was hardly uttered when there came a flash from the green behind him, a loud report followed, and a bullet whistled by Buck Hardy's head.