"We—better—light—out—now."
Toady stopped stock-still in the roadway. "Why?" he demanded.
"Do you want to go to jail?"
"Naw, but they don't put kids in jail here. I s'pose likely we'd get a good thrashing——"
"Would you rather stay here and take a whaling than skip while you've got the chance?" cried Billiard, turning pale at the mere thought of such a punishment at the hands of a desert constable, who, somehow, in his imagination, had assumed the proportions and disposition of a monster.
"We—we deserve a sound licking," bravely replied Toady, whose conscience was troubling him sorely.
It was Billiard's turn to halt in the rocky road and stare with unbelieving eyes at his brother, finally finding vent for his feelings by hissing the single word, "Coward!"
"No more coward than you!" Toady denied. "We have been as mean as dirt ever since we came here, and if Tabitha had been as hateful as most girls are, she'd have written Uncle Hogan long ago."
"So you're fishing to get her to write, are you?"
"No, I ain't, but I believe she'd—like it—better—if we told her ourselves, instead of getting found out by someone else."