they sat down to their evening meal with a great fire crackling and glowing in front of their temporary shelter, and filling it with fierce light which completely blinded their eyes to everything in the gloom beyond. They had carelessly stacked their arms in a corner, a dozen feet beyond reach, and were chatting in a jolly way when suddenly there appeared before them the tall mountaineer of the night before.
This time he was wilier than on his previous appearance. This time he levelled his gun at the party and quickly stepped between them and their arms. Then, with his rifle at his shoulder and his finger near the hair trigger that was set to go off at the very lightest touch, he called out:
"You got the drap on me las' night, but now I've dun got the drap on you. Will you now git out'n this here mounting? I've dun give you notice that us fellers what lives up here don't want no visitors from down below. So throw up your hands and march right now, every one of you. I'll take keer o' your guns an' other things, an' I'm not a goin' to take this rifle from my shoulder till the last one of you is well started down the mounting. Come now! Git a move onto you!"
At that moment a noise as of some heavy body falling was heard in the outer darkness just beyond the limits of the firelight. The next instant little Tom leaped upon the mountaineer's back grasped his throat with both hands and dragged him to earth. His rifle went off in the mélee, but fortunately the bullet had no billet and flattened itself against the side of the cliff.
Of course the mountaineer was more than a match for little Tom and in a prolonged struggle would easily have got the better of him. But the other boys instantly came to their comrade's assistance and the intruder was quickly and completely overcome.
He had received some ugly hurts in the encounter, among them a broken arm, but the Doctor dressed the wounds and meantime the man became placative in his mood.
"I was about to shoot him," said little Tom, "but it isn't a pleasant thing to shoot a man even when you must, and so I thought of the other plan, and jumped on his back instead. I knew I couldn't hold him down by myself, but I knew you other fellows would come to my assistance, so I risked that mode of operations."
"If you had shot him," said the Doctor, "you'd have been justified both in law and in morals."
"Yes, I know that," said little Tom, "but I shouldn't have slept well afterwards and I'm fond of my sleep."
"Well now eat your supper," said the Doctor, "and perhaps our friend the enemy here will join you in enjoying it."
To the astonishment of all, the mountaineer eagerly replied:
"Well, I don't keer if I do. I ain't et nothin' sence a very early breakfast, an' it wa'n't much of anything that I et then. As for the little scrimmage, I don't bear no malice when I gits hurt in a fair fight – least of all against a young chap like that. You see I had got the drap on you fellers, an' when he come up sort o' unexpected like and unbeknownst to me, he jist naterally took the drap on me. It was all fair an' right, an' I want to say I'm grateful to him for not usin' his gun. He could 'a shot me like a dog, an' he didn't."
All this while the lean and hungry mountaineer was eating voraciously and in spite of his wounds with an eager relish.
"How do you people live up here?" asked the Doctor. "You can't grow much in the way of crops. Do you generally have enough to eat?"
"Well hardly to say generally. Sometimes we has, and more oftener we hasn't. You see our business is onsartain. That's why we don't like strangers prowlin' around in the mountings. Now I've got somethin' friendly like, to say to you fellers. Fust off I want to tell you I'm not agoin' to bother you agin. I'm a believin' that you've come up here on a straight business. But there's others that ain't got so much faith as me. They'll make trouble for you if you stay. My advice to you is to git out'n the mountings jest as quick as you kin."
"But my friend," said the Doctor, "Why should we leave the mountains? We are on land owned by the mother of my young friends here. We have come only to see if we can't get some money for her out of lands that have never paid her anything – not even earning the taxes that she has paid on them. Why shouldn't we stay here and do this? This is a free country, and – "
"They's taxes in it," said the mountaineer, gritting his teeth, "an' they's jails for them that tries to carry on business without a payin' of the taxes. I don't call that no free country."
"It would be idle to argue that question," replied the Doctor. "But we, at least, have nothing to do with the taxes. We are here to make a little money in a perfectly legitimate way, by hard work. We are not interfering with any body and we don't intend to interfere with any body. But we're going to stay here all winter and carry on our business."
"Yes!" added Jack, "and if any body interferes with us it will be the worse for him."
"Well, you're makin' of a mistake," said the mountaineer, "an' I give you friendly warnin'. As I done told you before, I believe you. I think you're dead straight. But there's them what ain't so charitable, as the preachers say. There's them that'll believe you're lyin', and 'll stick to that there belief till the cows come home, an' they'll make a mighty heap o' trouble fer you fellers ef you tries to stay here. They're men that won't be watched I tell you, and forty witnesses, all on their Bible oaths couldn't persuade 'em but what you're here to watch 'em. It's friendly advice I give you when I tells you to git out'n these mountings."
"All right," broke in little Tom, "but while you're scattering friendly advice around suppose you advise your friends to let us alone. Tell them that little Tom Ridsdale proposes to shoot next time, and to shoot his buckshot barrel at that." Tom rose to his feet and added:
"You and your people mean war. Very well. I for one, accept the issue. Hereafter it will be war, and in war every man shoots to do all the damage he can. I have a perfect right to be here on my mother's land, and here I am going to stay. If every other fellow in the party should start down the mountain this night, I would stay here alone to fight it out all winter. And every other fellow in our party feels just as I do. Go to your criminal friends and tell them that! But warn them that if they interfere with us we'll not wrestle with them, we'll shoot and we'll take no chance of missing. We'll shoot to produce effects. We'll never interfere with you or your friends, but you and your friends mustn't interfere with us. If you do, you'll get war and all you want of it. We've tried to do the right thing by you; and now I give you fair warning."
"Well, all I've got to say," said the mountaineer, as he took his departure, "is jest this: You fellers has dealt fair with me, an' I'll deal fair with you. That boy that threw me down an' broke my arm mout just as easy have shot me through the body; an' then the tender way that the Doctor done up my arm! Why even a woman couldn't 'a' been tenderer like. Now I ain't got no quarrel with you fellers, an' that's why I'm advisin' you to git down out'n the mountings as soon as you kin. There's others, I tell you, an' they ain't soft hearted like me. They'll give you a heap o' trouble if you stay here."
"Let them try it," answered little Tom. "Let them try it. Then we'll see who's who, and what's what. Now tell your friends what I've said to you. There! good night! I hope your arm will get well. If it doesn't, come over here and let the Doctor look at it."
With that defiant farewell in his ears the mountaineer took his leave.
"Was it prudent, Tom?" asked Ed Parmly, "to send that sort of defiant message to the moonshiners?"
"Yes, quite prudent. We want them to know that we are here on our own business and not on theirs, at all. We want them to know that we propose to stay here whether they want us to do so or not. And finally, we want them to understand that any interference with us on their part, will mean war. I've simply issued a Declaration of Independence, and – "
"And
