ll try," replied the dominie. They fired simultaneously
and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they
had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after
them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home.
After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and
faced each other.

"I've killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me
on the lip escaped," said Coristine.

"I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple,"
replied Wilkinson.

"Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?"

"Yes; they have given up the pursuit."

"Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital." So he produced his flask
and bathed the dominie's temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after
which Wilkinson loosened his friend's flannel shirt and applied the same
remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to
the ground. The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the
cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.

"It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he's bound
to get it."

"Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by 'they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword.'"

"Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us."

As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his
friend and asked him for counsel.

"You've studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a
loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the
Grinstun man."

"What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue
detective?"

"A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too."

"Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?"

"As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have."

"How?"

"Well, he is making money by cheating the Government."

"Where is your proof?"

"Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these
three teams on the road."

"Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence."

"They're things that should be looked into, though."

"Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so? Are you a whiskey
informer?"

"Come now, Wilks, that's a pretty bad name to call a man."

"That may be, but it seems to denote the role you have set before
yourself."

"I'd like to run that brute into the ground."

"Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but
from malice."

"