"I want you to throw down that rifle as quick as ever you can!" cried Frank.
"I've a curiosity to see what sort of a piece you use to shoot at men carrying off the wounded."
And the "grayback" (as the boys termed the rebels) could hear the ominous click of the gun lock in Frank's hands.
"Yes, it was; and I'm bound to put lead into you now, if you don't do as I tell you pretty quick!"
"I can't throw my gun down; I can't get it off," remonstrated the man.
"You never will come down from that tree alive, unless you do!" said Frank.
"Well, take the d----d thing then!" growled the man. And unclasping one arm from the tree, while he held on with the other and his two legs, he slipped the belt over his head, and dropped the gun to the ground. "If it had been good for any thing, I reckon you wouldn't be here now, bothering me!" he added, significantly.
"No doubt!" said Frank. "You are brave fellows, to shoot out of trees at men carrying off the wounded. Wait! I'm not quite ready for you yet."
And he stood under the tree, with his musket pointed upwards, ready cocked, and with the point of the bayonet in rather ticklish proximity to the most exposed and prominent part of the rebel's person.
"Ye think I'm going to stick here all day?" growled the desperate climber.
"You'll stick there till you throw me down your revolver," Frank resolutely informed him.
"I saw your hand make a motion at your pocket. You thought you'd try a shot at me. But you saw at the very next motion you'd be a dead man!"
"You mean to say you'd blow my brains out?"
"Yes, if your brains are where my gun is aimed, as I think the brains of rebels must be, or they never would have seceded."
Frank's gun, by the way, was aimed at the above mentioned very exposed and prominent part.
"Come, my young joker, I can't stand this!"
"You'll have to stand it till you throw down that revolver!"
"Then I'll give you something sharp to slip on!"
The man felt that he had really betrayed himself by making the involuntary movement towards his breast-pocket, which Frank had been too shrewd not to notice. The cocked gun, and bayonet, and resolute young face below, were inexorable. So he yielded.
"Don't throw it towards me! Drop it the other side!" cried the wary Frank.