e," he said to Ralph and Bud. "You see I jest won't.
What would Gin'ral Winfield Scott say ef he knew that one of them as fit
at Lundy's Lane backed out, retreated, run fer fear of a passel of
thieves? No, sir; me and the old flintlock will live and die together.
I'll put a thunderin' charge of buckshot into the first one of them
scoundrels as comes up the holler. It'll be another Lundy's Lane. And
you, Mr. Hartsook, may send Scott word that ole Pearson, as fit at
Lundy's Lane under him, died a-fightin' thieves on Rocky Branch, in
Hoopole Kyounty, State of Injeanny."

And the old man hobbled faster and faster, taxing his wooden leg to the
very utmost, as if his victory depended on the vehemence with which he
walked his beat.

Mrs. Pearson sat wringing her hands and looking appealingly at Martha
Hawkins, who stood in the door, in despair, looking appealingly at Bud.
Bud was stupefied by the old man's stubbornness and his own pain, and in
his turn appealed mutely to the master, in whose resources he had
boundless confidence. Ralph, seeing that all depended on him, was taxing
his wits to think of some way to get round Pearson's stubbornness.
Shocky hung to the old man's coat and pulled away at him with many
entreating words, but the venerable, bare-headed sentinel strode up and
down furiously, with his flintlock on his shoulder and his basket-knife
in his belt.

Just at this point somebody could be seen indistinctly through the
bushes coming up the hollow.

"Halt!" cried the old hero. "Who goes there?"

"It's me, Mr. Pearson. Don't shoot me, please."

It was the voice of Hannah Thomson. Hearing that the whole neighborhood
was rising against the benefactor of Shocky and of her family, she had
slipped away from the eyes of her mistress, and run with breathless
haste to give warning in the cabin on Rocky Branch. Seeing Ralph, she
blushed, and went into the cabin.

"Well," said Ralph, "the enemy is not coming yet. Let us hold a council
of war."

This thought came to Ralph like an inspiration. It pleased the old man's
whim, and he sat down on the door-step.

"Now, I suppose," said Ralph, "that General Winfield Scott always looked
into things a little before he went into a fight. Didn't he?"

"_To_ be sure," assented the old man.

"Well," said Ralph. "What is the condition of the enemy? I suppose the
whole neighborhood's against us."

"_To_ be sure," said the old man. The rest were silent, but all felt the
statem