"I have made one," I answered, lying flat on the floor, gazing out. No shot had been fired from my side, and I had begun to think that the entire force was confronting Alf when in the sobering light I saw a man standing beside a tree not more than fifty yards distant. He appeared to be talking to some one, for I saw him look round and nod his head. I did not want to kill him, although the law was plainly on my side, but a man may stand shoulder to shoulder with the law and yet wound his own conscience. Another figure came within sight, among the bushes, appearing to rise out of the leafy darkness, and then there came a loud shout: "Come out of there, you coward!"
"Don't say a word," said Alf. "They are trying to locate you. I don't see anybody yet, and it's getting most too dark now. But I reckon we'd both better fire to let them know that there is more than one of us. We don't want to take any advantage of them, you know," he added, laughing.
"It doesn't look as if we were," I answered. "I could kill one of them, Alf."
"The devil you could! Then do it. Here, let me get at him."
"No," I replied, waving him off from my peep-hole. "It is better not to kill him until we are forced to."
"But we are forced to now, don't you see? They've shot at us. There you are!" They had fired a volley, it seemed. "Let me get at him," said Alf.
"I'll try him," I replied. And I poked the barrel of my pistol through the crack, pretended to take a careful aim and fired.
"Did you get him?" Alf asked.
"Don't know; can't see very well."
"Well, if I find one of them he's gone," he replied, returning to his own look-out. And a moment later the almost simultaneous discharge of both barrels of his gun jarred the house. "Don't know whether I got him or not," he said, as he drew back and began to reload, "for I couldn't see very well, but I'll bet he thinks a hurricane came along through the bushes. It's too dark now to see anything and all we can do is to wait."