The latter put down the rifle. "If you say that again, Ambrose Skinner, I'll fight you," he said.
"Oh, come, don't talk like that," said Hosmer, quietly. "Will is right, Skinny; we oughtn't to touch the powder. It belongs to Uncle Sam."
"He would not miss a handful," said Skinny, shame-facedly. Then he added, "I guess you are right, though, come to think. Let's go back to the village; it's most four o'clock."
The boys walked down the grade. A mile away was a wooden box-bridge with a carriageway on one side and the single track on the other. It spanned a deep and swiftly running stream that opened into the Ohio River a few leagues below. It was here the accident had taken place.
As they came into the village street they saw that a crowd had collected around the post-office.
"News from the front!" shouted Tevis, in the familiar words they had so often heard; and the trio started forward on a run.
On the outside of the post-office shutters was a big placard drawn hastily up in red ink: