“Cheek! Come off the roof! I got yer measure now, young man; so tell me why you set that pirogue afire, and be quick about it.”
“I didn’t set it afire, I tell you! I saw it burning from my bedroom window and paddled down after it and took a look at it. Tim Hood came out in a sturgeon boat to take a look, too. That’s all I know about it.”
“Easy there, Dave Brown!” cautioned McAllister. “You know all Ben knows about the burning of that blasted pirogue now—and now you go asking him about yer eye. What’s the sense in that? That’s not the way to handle a lad like Ben.”
“Cut it out, Jim McAllister! You can’t put any more of that high-an’-mighty, too-good-to-sneeze O’Dell slush over on me. I fell for it once, but once was enough. O’Dell! Save it to fool Injuns with!”
Ben’s face was as colorless as his shirt.
“You’ve done it now,” said McAllister grimly.
“I reckon ye’ve went a mite too far, Mr. Brown,” said Mel Lunt.
“Come into the next barn where there’s more room,” said young Ben O’Dell in a cracked voice.
“I’m not fighting to-day, I’m arresting,” replied Brown.
“Arresting any one in particular?” asked Uncle Jim.
“I suspect him of burning Sherwood’s pirogue with the intention of destroying evidence.”
Mel Lunt shook his head. McAllister laughed. Ben stood straight and grim, waiting.
“You are a deputy sheriff, Dave Brown, but you ain’t the law,” said McAllister. “You don’t know the law—nor you don’t know this river—and somebody’s been filling you up with hot air. What you need is a licking to kind of clear yer brain. After that, you can tell Judge Smith down at Woodstock all about it—and see what happens. Ben’s the doctor. Will you take your treatment here or in the other barn where there’s more room?”
Mr. Brown lost his temper then, turned and hurled himself at Ben. Ben sent him back with a left to the chest and a right to the ribs.
“Yer in the wrong of it, Mr. Brown,” complained the constable. “I warned ye that Tim Hood was sartain to git ye in wrong.”
The deputy sheriff paid no attention to Lunt but made a backward pass with his right hand. Ben jumped at the same instant. There was a brief, wrenching struggle; and then the youth leaped back and dropped an automatic pistol at his uncle’s feet. McAllister placed a foot on the weapon. Again Brown rushed upon Ben and again he staggered back. There was no room for circling or side-stepping in the narrow space between the load of hay and the hay-filled bays. It had to be action front or quit.