t, so
Ginger got orders to shoot me. At that I flared up. "Shoot," says I,
"you skulking cowards, scared to show your noses at the door. Hold your
off ear, Whiskers. Charge, you curs!"

The chief came first, straight at me, and seemed to climb over my foot
on to his nose. Mr. Bull Brooke got hurt on the nose too, and I'd just
time to hand the greaser a left hander behind the ear, before I went
down on top of Whiskers, and the four of us rolled in a heap. I learned
when I was a sailor how to argue.

Then I struggled, dragging my pile of robbers off sideways, so that to
keep me covered with the gun, poor Ginger showed his red head in the
doorway. It was his life or mine, yet when the shot rang out from across
the river, and I saw the lad come crashing to the ground, I felt sort of
sick. Of course that shot slacked the grip of the three robbers, so I
wrenched loose, struck hard, and jumped high, gaining the north wall of
the cabin. When I turned round, our boys across the river were pouring
hot lead after the robbers as they dived through the door of the shack.
Ginger sprawled dead on the door-step, and my gun, six paces off, lay in
the dust. The robbers were disarmed, and I was free.

"Boys," I called out to them, "you done like men. You put up a good
fight and it ain't no shame to surrender."

Mr. Bull Brooke's voice answered.

"Jesse, old friend!"

I heard a crash inside and guessed that Mr. Brooke had been discouraged.

"Whiskers," I called, "don't make a mess of that cabin with Mr. Brooke."

"All right, young fellow," said Whiskers, "we've only put him back in
the flour sack."

He spoke quite cheerful.

"Say, Whiskers," I called, "I want to save your lives, you and the
greaser. Come and throw up your hands before you're hurt."

There was no answer. Rocky Mountain outlaws may be mean and bad, but
they fight like Americans, and they know how to die. I'd only one way
left to force their surrender, and save their lives, so I hustled
brushwood, cord-wood, coal-oil from the shed, piled up the fuel, and got
a sulphur match from the bunch in my hind pocket.

"Boys," I called, "Old Brown sort of values this place. It's all the
home he's got, and it ain't insured."

No answer.

The little flame lep' up and caught the brushwood, the crackling lifted
to a roar, and the robbers must surely know that their time was come,
for if they showed at the door they would be shot. I grabbed my gun from
the ground and ran to