d. "For instance,
Tag, I won't believe that you're half as bad as you try to paint
yourself."

"Bad?" snorted young Mosher, with something of sullen pride in
his voice. "I'm about as mean as they make them. You know what
they say I did to that farmer?"

"Well, did you?" challenged Prescott.

"I'm not saying," came the gruff answer. "For one thing, it wouldn't
do me a bit of good to deny it. When a fellow has a bad name
everywhere any judge and jury will hang him. Now, I happen to
object to being hanged, or even to being locked up for perhaps
twenty or thirty years. Queer in me, isn't it?"

"What you ought to do," pursued Dick, "and what you will do, if
you are brave and manly, is to drop that gun, face about, and
march yourself back to jail."

"And be locked up some more?" quivered Tag in excitement.

"If you're guilty of assaulting Mr. Leigh, you should be also
brave and manly enough to walk back to jail, ready to pay the
price of your act like a man. If you're not guilty, then you
should be man enough to face the world and prove your innocence
like a real man. Don't be a cowardly sneak, Tag!"

"A coward?" blurted the other angrily. "You ought to know better'n
that. And the officers know better, too; I may be only a boy,
but the officers are out in packs, hunting for me. I know, for
I've seen two pairs of those fellows go by on the road to-day."

"Are you going to be a man, Tag, or just a sneaking coward?" asked
Dick, as he rose.

"Sit down!" commanded Tag sharply.

"If you really want to talk with me, and will say 'please,' I'll
sit down," Dick smiled back coolly at the angry boy. "But if
you're just simply ordering me to sit down, then I won't do anything
of the sort. Do you want to talk with me?"

"Sit down!"

"You didn't say 'please.'"

"I'm not going to say it."

"Then good-bye for a little while."

Though the muzzles of the sawed-off shotgun stared wickedly at
him, Dick Prescott turned on his heel, walking off.

"Are you going, now, to tip the officers off that you've seen
me?" called Tag.

"Yes."

Behind Dick, as he kept on his way back toward camp there came
a snort of anger. Prescott was not quite as cool as he appeared
to be. He knew there was at least a chance that savage Tag Mosher
would send the contents of one or both barrels of the gun into
his back. Dick, however, had mastered the first secret of bravery,
which is to conceal one's fear.

Again snorting, you