“It’s plain as day,” Mark laughed, “that they can never get in here at us. There’s room for only one man at a time through that opening, and it’s only another case of Horatius at the bridge.”
“Hang it!” growled Texas. “Ain’t we goin’ to have any fun, then? Doggone their boots, I say we go out an’ wallop ’em.”
“Yea, by Zeus!” echoed the Parson, who was striding furiously up and down the cave, thirsting for gore and incidentally rubbing his sore head. “Yea, by Zeus! For I feel that I could go forth against the Philistines like Samson of yore, and slay thirty thousand of them——”
“With the jawbone of a counterfeiter” chuckled Dewey, “b’gee!”
“It is sad to think,” Mark went on, after the laugh was over, “that those yearlings will get in here finally.”
“How’s that?” roared Texas.
“We can’t be here to guard it all day and all night,” answered Mark. “They are bound to get in some day.”
He was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
And then suddenly he gave an exclamation of delight.
“By jingo!” he cried, “I have it!”