d him, and stand the chain; but as soon
as anything passed close that he could kill, he'd have his teeth into
it and be lapping its blood before you could say knife, and the older he
got the worse he'd be.

'Well, Dick,' says this young limb of Satan, 'so you've took to the
Queen's highway agin, as the chap says in the play. I thought you and
Jim was a-going to jine the Methodies or the Sons of Temperance at
Turon, you both got to look so thunderin' square on it. Poor old Jim
looks dreadful down in the mouth, don't he, though?'

'It would be all the better for you if you'd joined some other body, you
young scamp,' I said. 'Who told you to come here? I've half a mind to
belt you home again to your mother;' and I walked towards him.

'No, you won't, Dick Marston, don't you make any mistake,' says the
young bull-pup, looking nasty. 'I'm as good a man as you, with this
little tool.' Here he pulled out his revolver. 'I've as much right to
turn out as you have. What odds is it to you what I do?'

I looked rather foolish at this, and Moran and Burke began to laugh.

'You'd better set up a night-school, Dick,' says Burke, 'and get Billy
and some of the other flash kiddies to come. They might turn over a new
leaf in time.'

'If you'll stand up, or Moran there, that's grinning behind you, I'll
make some of ye laugh on the wrong side,' I said.

'Come on,' drawls Moran, taking off his coat, and walking up; 'I'd like
to have a smack at you before you go into the Church.'

We should have been at it hammer and tongs--we both hated one another
like poison--only the others interfered, and Billy said we ought to be
ashamed of ourselves for quarrelling like schoolboys. We were nice sort
of chaps to stick up a gold escort. That made a laugh, and we knocked
off.

Well, it looked as if no one wanted to speak. Then Hulbert, a very quiet
chap, says, 'I believe Ben Marston's the oldest man here; let's hear
what he's got to say.'

Father gets up at once, and looks steady at the rest of 'em, takes his
pipe out of his mouth, and shakes the baccy out. Then he says--

'All on ye knows without my telling what we've come here about, and what
there's hangin' to it. It's good enough if it's done to rights; but make
no mistake, boys, it's a battle as must be fought game, and right back
to the ropes, or not at all. If there's a bird here that won't stand the
steel he'd better be put in a bag and took home again.'

'Never mind about the steel