"No," I said, my hand still under the hammers. "You must not."
He looked hard at me for a moment and then suffered me to take the gun. The fire was now dying, and, looking to the left, whence the firing had come, I saw two of the Aimes boys standing under a tree.
"Bill, I could kill both of them," Alf said, in a sorrowful voice.
"I know, my dear boy, but you must not. You would always regret it. We will let the law take charge of them to-morrow."
"Not to-morrow, Bill, but to-night. To-morrow they will be gone."
"All right; just as you say. Where is the nearest officer?"
"A deputy sheriff lives about two miles from here, off to the right of our road home. Come on."
We came into the road after making a circuit through the woods, and hastened onward. And we must have gone nearly half the distance to the deputy's house when we heard the Aimes boys coming behind us, drunk and whooping. "They think we are burnt up," said Alf; "but we'll show them. Let's get aside into the bushes, and when they come along we'll let them have it."
"We will get aside into the bushes," said I, "but we will not let them have it. Come over this side. Let me have your gun."
He let me take the gun, and as he stood near me, waiting for the ruffians to pass, I thought that he made an unseemly degree of noise, merely to attract their attention so that he might have an opportunity to fire at them. "Keep still, Alf," I whispered.