t in for you."

Fisher smiled. "Perhaps you haven't noticed," he said, "that I always
make certain that one or the other of you fellows sees us leave.
Maunders would break his neck to see me get back safely."

Unquestionably, Maunders had an almost over-developed bump of caution.
He left Fisher unharmed and turned his attention to the two
backwoodsmen from Maine who were holding down the most desirable claim
north of Medora for an Eastern tenderfoot.

One Sunday morning late in September Sewall was alone in the dugout
at the river-bank. Dow was off on a stroll and Sewall was writing his
weekly letter home, when he suddenly heard hoof-beats punctuated with
shots. He went to the door. Six rough-looking characters on horseback
were outside with smoking rifles in their hands. He knew only one of
them, but he was evidently the leader. It was Maunders. Sewall took in
the situation and invited them all inside.

The men had been drinking, and, suspecting that they would be hungry,
Sewall offered them food. Dow was an excellent cook and in the ashes
of the hearth was a pot of baked beans, intended for their own midday
meal. Sewall, keeping carefully within reach of one or the other of
his weapons which hung on the wall, set the pot before the evil-faced
gunmen.

Maunders, who was slightly drunk, ate ravenously and directly began to
sing the praises of the beans. Sewall filled his plate, and filled it
again.

"I thought I would do everything I could to make them comfortable," he
remarked, telling about it later, "and then if they cooked up any
racket we should have to see what the end would be. I knew that if
they were well filled, it would have a tendency to make them
good-natured, and besides that it puts a man in rather an awkward
position, when he's got well treated, to start a rumpus."

Sewall watched the men unostentatiously, but with an eagle eye. He had
made up his mind that if there were to be any dead men thereabouts
Maunders was to be the first. "He being the leader I thought I would
make sure of him whatever happened to me."

He noted, not without satisfaction, that the men were looking around
the cabin, regarding the weapons with attention. He showed Maunders
about. The gunman agreed without enthusiasm that they had "got things
fixed up in very fine shape," and departed. He treated Sewall most
affably thereafter, but the backwoodsmen were made aware in one way
and another that the old mischief-maker had not