e them at all. Then I
saw the whole gang coming on a dog-trot along the grade, two abreast,
with one ahead, seven pleasant neighbors coming to call on me at
Track's End. I let them come as near as they deserved to come to any
honest town and then fired a shot in front of them. I tried to see if
the bullet skipped on the snow, but the smoke got in my eyes.

Anyhow, they stopped pretty quick, and stood all in a bunch, talking.
"Maybe you don't like to be shot at," I said out loud. I don't know
how it was, but my heart was doing better. I thought I would wait and
see before I did any more shooting.

They talked a few minutes; then one of them got off his horse, handed
his gun and belt to one of the others, took off his big fur coat,
pulled out a white cloth and waved it and came walking very slowly
toward the town. This seemed fair enough; I had heard my Uncle Ben
tell about flags of truce in the war. I waved my handkerchief out of
the port-hole and then waited three or four minutes as if we in the
houses were talking it over; then I walked boldly out the back door.
Kaiser wanted to go along, so I let him.

The man walked very slowly, and I did the same, but we came up within
a few steps of each other at last. This was out not very far from the
water-tank. I had expected it was Pike himself, and, sure enough, it
was, wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up.

[Illustration: MY MEETING WITH PIKE, TRACK'S END, FEBRUARY FIFTH]

"It's you, is it, Jud?" said he in a kind of sneering tone. (It seemed
strange to me to hear a man's voice, I had been so long alone.)

"Yes, it's me," I answered. "What do you want?"

"I sort of thought these here Track's Enders might send out a
full-grown man to talk to me about such an important matter," he went
on.

"I was man enough to catch you a couple of times and it was only your
good luck that you weren't hung up here in Track's End by the neck," I
said, a little put out by the way he spoke, because I was almost as
big as he was.

"Oh, well, no matter. Now you--"

"I'll tell you the reason I was sent out," I broke in, just thinking
of something.

"What is it?"

"I can say all there is to say as well as anybody, but I'm a poor
shot, so it was decided that if I didn't get back it wouldn't make
much difference in the matter of shooting you fellows down if you come
any nearer."

He pulled his collar down and looked at me over his crooked nose.
Kaiser began to growl, bu