d. So also did the other boys,
running in long leaps through the garden and arriving at the spot very
belligerent and very much out of breath.

"Got to do something to pass away the time," Jack grinned, bringing his
front sight once more to bear upon the coffee--pot, already badly dented
and showing three black holes. "And I ain't offering any violence
to anybody. You can't hang a man, Mr. Stanley, for shooting up a
frying-pan. And I wouldn't--hurt--you--for--anything!" He had just
reloaded, so that his bullets saw him to the end of the sentence.

Stanley watched his coffee-pot dance and roll like a thing in pain, and
swore when all was done. But he did not shoot, though one could see how
his fingers must itch for the feel of the trigger.

"Your old dad will sweat blood for this--and you'll be packing your
blanket on your back and looking for work before snow flies," was his
way of summing up.

Still, he did not shoot.

It was like throwing pebbles at the bowlder in the Malad, the day
before.

When Phoebe came running in terror toward the fusillade, with Marie
and her swollen face, and Evadna and her red eyes following in great
trepidation far behind, they found four claim-jumpers purple from long
swearing, and the boys gleefully indulging in revolver practice with
various camp utensils for the targets.

They stopped when their belts were empty as well as their guns, and they
went back to the house with the women, feeling much better. Afterward
they searched the house for more "shells," clattering from room to room,
and looking into cigar boxes and upon out-of-the-way shelves, while
Phoebe expostulated in the immediate background.

"Your father would put a stop to it pretty quick if he was here," she
declared over and over. "Just because they didn't shoot back this time
is no sign they won't next time you boys go to hectoring them." All the
while she knew she was wasting her breath, and she had a secret fear
that her manner and her tones were unconvincing. If she had been a man,
she would have been their leader, perhaps. So she retreated at last
to her favorite refuge, the milk-house, and tried to cover her secret
approval with grumbling to herself.

There was a lull in the house. The boys, it transpired, had gone in
a body to Hartley after more cartridges, and the cloud of dust which
hovered long over the trail testified to their haste. They returned
surprisingly soon, and they would scarcely wait for their