Marion carried the shotgun over to the table and placed it on the floor beside old Noel Sabattis. Then, moving swiftly and with precision, she opened a drawer in the table, drew out a knife and cut the thin rope which bound the Maliseet’s legs together and to the table.
Noel seized the gun at the breech with his manacled hands and got quickly to his feet. With both hands close together on the grip of the stock, he pushed the lever aside with a thumb. The breech fell open, disclosing the metal base of a cartridge. He closed the breech by knocking the muzzle smartly on the edge of the table. His hands had only an inch of play, but that was enough. They overlapped around the slender grip, with the hammer within easy reach of a thumb and the trigger in the crook of a finger.
“Dat a’right,” he said, glancing over the intruders. “Good gun, hey? Light on de trigger, hey?”
“Sure she’s light on the trigger!” cried Lunt. “Mind what ye’re about, Noel! A joke’s a joke—but ye’ll hang for this if ye ain’t careful!”
Noel smiled and told them to sit down on the floor. They obeyed reluctantly, protesting with oaths. Then he asked the little girl to open the door and admit the dogs, which she did. The red dogs bounded into the kitchen, took in the situation at a glance and surrounded the two seated on the floor. Red Chief and Red Lily showed their gleaming fangs, whereupon old Tim Hood became as silent and still as a man of wood.
“I think you have them safe, Noel,” said Mrs. O’Dell.
Noel nodded.
“Then I’ll go up and give him his quinine,” she said, handing the pistols over to the enthusiastic little girl.
Noel and Marion sat down on chairs in front of the constable and the ferryman. The three dogs stood. Everything pointed at the two on the floor—five pairs of eyes, the muzzles of firearms and the muzzles of dogs.
“Forgit it, Noel,” said Mr. Lunt. “Cut it out. What’s the use? I’m willin’ to let bygones be bygones. Call off yer dogs an’ swing that there gun o’ mine off a p’int or two an’ Tim an’ me will clear out. Careful with them pistols, little girl, for Heaven’s sake! Noel, ain’t she too young to be handlin’ pistols? She might shoot herself.”