“I suspect him of burning Sherwood’s pirogue with the intention of destroying evidence.”
Mel Lunt shook his head. McAllister laughed. Ben stood straight and grim, waiting.
“You are a deputy sheriff, Dave Brown, but you ain’t the law,” said McAllister. “You don’t know the law—nor you don’t know this river—and somebody’s been filling you up with hot air. What you need is a licking to kind of clear yer brain. After that, you can tell Judge Smith down at Woodstock all about it—and see what happens. Ben’s the doctor. Will you take your treatment here or in the other barn where there’s more room?”
Mr. Brown lost his temper then, turned and hurled himself at Ben. Ben sent him back with a left to the chest and a right to the ribs.
“Yer in the wrong of it, Mr. Brown,” complained the constable. “I warned ye that Tim Hood was sartain to git ye in wrong.”
The deputy sheriff paid no attention to Lunt but made a backward pass with his right hand. Ben jumped at the same instant. There was a brief, wrenching struggle; and then the youth leaped back and dropped an automatic pistol at his uncle’s feet. McAllister placed a foot on the weapon. Again Brown rushed upon Ben and again he staggered back. There was no room for circling or side-stepping in the narrow space between the load of hay and the hay-filled bays. It had to be action front or quit.
The deputy sheriff was shaken but not hurt, for young O’Dell had spared his face. He lowered his head and charged like a ram. Ben gave ground before that unsportsmanlike onset; and, alas for Mr. Brown’s nose and upper lip, he gave more than ground.
“Ye’d best quit right now,” wailed Mel Lunt. “Yer gittin’ all messed up an’ ye ain’t in yer rights an’ folks’ll maybe think as I was mixed up in it too.”
Brown made a fourth attack and tried to obtain a wrestler’s hold low down on the overgrown youth; but Ben, cool as a butter firkin in a cellar, hooked him off. Brown charged yet again, and then once more, and then sat down on the floor.
They bathed his face and held cold water for him to drink. Ben fetched sticking plaster from the house, covertly, and applied strips of it here and there to his late antagonist’s damaged face.