said Philip.

"Bet he can't hold a candle to Blant," put in Nucky, jealously.

"Maybe he can't, and maybe he can," drawled Joab, provokingly.

"Nobody haint as quick on the trigger as Blant," declared Nucky; "I'll
bet nobody haint kilt and wounded more inside a few months than him, or
would have been in jail more times if the officers could have kotch him
and helt him."

"Jail," murmured Joab, contemptuously, "jail haint nothing! My paw's
spent two year at Frankfort!"

The boys all exclaimed in admiration. "Gee-oh," said Philip, with new
respect, "I never knowed he'd been penitentiaried."

"How many has he kilt?" inquired Nucky, skeptically.

"Oh, no more'n he had to," drawled Joab.

"I heared something about his killing off a few Lusks," said Taulbee.

"Yes, a few," admitted Joab; "Serildy Byng, that next-to-last of his,
she got to talking some to a couple of the Lusks, and paw got wind of
it, and kotch 'em a-hanging around one day. But he never kilt but one
dead; and soon as t'other got able to talk, he sot all the Lusks ag'in
paw,--there was nine on his track, laywaying and ambushing. At last one
day they all rid up behind him over on the head of Rakeshin. He seed a
turn in the road ahead, where there was a big rock. Every time they'd
shoot, he'd jump like he was hit; and just as he got to the rock, he
spraddled out flat on his nag, like he was dead. That was the last they
seed, and they come up a-whooping, thinking they had him kilt. And about
that time six of 'em got bullets in 'em, and three drapped dead; for paw
had clim up on the rock and was a-laying for 'em. Time the rest of the
Lusks got up from their wounds, they allowed paw was a mean enough man
to leave alone."

Nucky was silenced. The impressive pause that followed was at last
broken by Philip. "What did he do to Serildy?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing, but shoot off a piece of her jaw and a little-grain of her
scalp."

Philip meditated again. "I expect that's the reason Serildy left your
paw, haint it? Women's so quare."

"Maybe," replied Joab, indifferently.

Oh, my perfect gentleman!

_Thursday._

Shinny went out and ball came in yesterday. When at noon the boys all
ran to me begging for yarn (of course store balls are an unknown luxury)
and when later I saw Philip, Keats and Hosea ravelling out old socks
they said they had bought from Geordie, Taulbee engaged upon a piece of
the old comforter he had traded off for a pop-gun, and