Frank could see them talking earnestly, and gesticulating as if to emphasize their words. Finally Pet seized the gun that one of the others carried, and taking a quick aim at the cabin he pulled the trigger.
“Bang! bang!” went both barrels.
The dead grass vanished from the little window under the charges of shot at such close quarters.
“Kim out o’ that, an’ surrender to the law!” bellowed Pet.
Frank laughed to himself at the words; it was more than comical to hear this boy, whose contempt for law and order had made him a marked character in Centerville, so loudly proclaim his sudden conversion.
Silence followed this peremptory command. Those within the cabin either did not care to answer, or else could not.
“Say, Pet, p’raps ye did for ’em that time?” suggested one of the others.
“Git out! Thar wa’nt no chance of that happenin’. Waddy just wants tuh fool us. He allers was that ways, yuh know,” answered Pet; but it was plain that the awful suggestion rather awed him.
“Shall I shoot, Pet?” asked the other owner of a gun, dubiously.
“’Course yuh must. Think I’m goin’ tuh do all the work. Blaze away both of ye, so long as ye got a shell left. Anyhow, p’raps we kin put in a claim fur part o’ the reward, fur holdin’ ’em here. Go on, Sim, I tell yuh!”