Bluff was plainly much excited, but Frank seemed quite cool.
“Never mind. Later on I may tell you something I’ve thought of. But he’s gone, I suppose, and we can consider the cabin again,” replied Frank.
“Why not rush it? Given a log, and I vow Tom and I can knock in that old door just like you’d smash an egg,” pleaded the impatient Bluff.
“That would be poor policy. In the first place those are desperate men, who are wanted for robbery, and they know the jail is fairly itching to hold them. Consequently they’re ready to take all sorts of chances before giving up. I wouldn’t put it past them to fire on us, to wound, at least, if not worse.”
“But look here, they haven’t got any guns, have they?” demanded Bluff.
“We only guessed that they hadn’t, but we can’t be sure. Such ugly customers are hardly likely to go without some means of defense, and Tom here will back me up in that. Besides, they’ve certainly got our chum,” declared Frank, seriously.
“Perhaps you’re right, Frank, but I’d be willing myself to take all the chances in a mix-up with that crowd,” grumbled poor Bluff, who always seemed to be close upon the border of an opportunity to do something, only to have the glorious prize snatched from his hands.
He looked longingly toward the lonely cabin, as though he yearned to have a shy at that ricketty door. According to his mind, once it was down those tramps would be only too glad to throw up their hands, just as Pet Peters and his crowd had done when he covered them on the lake.
Frank himself hardly knew what action to take.
“If I only thought they wouldn’t take it out on poor Jerry, I’d be tempted to let Bluff work his bold little trick. But I’m afraid. I know what such men can do, with a long prison term staring them in the face. Some of them would just as soon he hung for a sheep as a lamb,” he muttered.