'We'd like to look at it to see if it's a real gun, sir,' said Arizona, with a very taking air of simplicity. 'Some of us reckons it's real, and some says your dad heeled you with a wooden one to scare a timid lot of boys from Arizona and Texas and Louisiana. Please let us look at it, sir.'
'Do, dear Bertie,' said the rest. And what happened then no one quite knew. Some said Bertie meant to shoot, some said he made a break for the brow which was the horse-gangway at the main hatch, and some say that Ben grabbed him. For about ten seconds there was a rough-and-tumble on the fore-hatch, in which three lanterns were finally expended, and then from the rumpus there emerged a pale and desperate Bertie, without a gun, in the grip of Ben, Arizona, and the silent Seth Graves. Jack from Missouri had the gun.
'Boys, the verdict of this expert is that this is a real gun,' said Jack, 'a real forty-five Frontier pistol, loaded with real cartridges. And if you pulls the trigger hard it's likely to go off.'
'There, dear Bertie, see what you've been monkeyin' with,' said Arizona. 'Mizzoura knows a gun well. You might have killed one of us poor boys, mostly orphans too, owin' to similar accidents happenin' to our paws.'
But the speechless son of the owner found his tongue.
'Let me go. I'll kill some of you! What the devil do you mean?'
He struggled frantically, and found his struggles entirely vain. For Seth Graves had him from behind in a clutch that it would have taken a small and healthy grizzly bear to get free of.
'I'll tell you what we mean,' said Ben, dusting himself carefully. 'We mean to give you some healthy advice. Mebbe you remember kickin' this child in the ribs when he was sick?'
'And me!' said Seth, who spoke for the first and last time.
'And you let on that you would kick me, boy,' said Arizona, 'and nothin' but the second officer interferin' saved you from it. Now we're goin' to investigate your case and decide what kind of immejit death will be joodishal. Boys, put a bale on the fore-hatch and I'll appint myself judge with a view to strict impartiality, for if I don't Ben Wilkins will, and he cayn't be impartial, as he said las' night he'd decided to hang the prisoner if he was appinted judge.'