“Why, thin, boys,” observed Rody, “what's the manin' o' this?—two o' the biggest inimies in Europe last night an' this mornin' an' now as great as two thieves! How does that come?”
“Very asy, Rody,” replied Reillaghan; “we made up the quarrel, shuck hands, an's good frinds as ever.”
“Bedad, that bates cock-fightin',” said Body, as he went to bring in the gun.
In the mean time, Prank, with the cards in his hand, went to the eave of the barn, I thrust them up under the thatch, and took out of the same nook a flask of whiskey.
“We'll want this,” said he, putting it to his lips, and gulping down a portion. “Come Mike, be tastin'; and aftherwards i put this in your pocket.”
Mike followed his example, and was corking the flask when Rody returned with the gun.
“She's charged,” said Frank; “but we'd betther put in fresh primin' for 'fraid of her hangin' fire.”
He then primed the gun, and handed it to Reillaghan. “Do you keep the gun, Mike,” he added, “an' I'll keep the cocksticks. Rody, I'll bet you a shillin' I kill more wid! the cockstick, nor he will wid the gun, will you take me up?”
“I know a safer thrick,” replied Rody; “you're a dead aim wid the cockstick, sure enough, an' a deader with the gun, too; catch me at it.”
“You show some sinse, for a wondher,” observed Frank, as he and his companion left the barn, and turned towards the mountains, which rose frowning behind the house. Rody stood looking after them until they wound up slowly out of sight among the hills; he then shook his head two or three times, and exclaimed, “By dad, there's somethin' in this, if one could make out: what it is. I know Frank.”