“Why,” began Jack, “I’ve——”
“No lip, young feller!”
The constable, for such he evidently was, drew out a huge old-fashioned revolver and flourished it.
“Look out what you’re doing with that,” warned Tom, whose sense of humor had come back again with his recovered good health, and who was now an interested spectator of the scene.
The constable glared at him, as if undecided whether or no he was being made fun of. The boys now saw what they had not noticed before, that quite a crowd, made up of farming folks attracted by the glare of the flames, had assembled. No effort was made to put out the fire. It had gone too far for that. The barn’s heaviest timbers showed now like a row of blackened, stumpy fangs against the red glare of the flames within. The roof had fallen in long since.
“Wall, I swan to goodness!” demanded one old gaffer in the crowd, “what’s all this, Officer Hake?”
“By hemlock, I don’ jes’ know, Squar’,” came the reply. “I seen ther flames same as you did, an’ hitched up ole Bess yonder ter drive out hyar.”
“Go on, officer,” said the old man who had been addressed as “Squar’,” with judicial coolness.
“Wa’al, I found ther barn all on fire—it’s Gus Davis’s, Squar’,—an’ these two young fellers lookin’ about dazed-like, while them three characters yonder lay bound on ther ground.”
The squire expectorated profusely.