That pistol
won't shoot. Look! When you cocked it the cap fell off."
CHAPTER XVIII.
DOWN THE ROAD.
With his old pistol useless in his hand the ruffian walked away, shaking
his head and muttering that a time was coming soon. "And with help from
off yander," Jasper heard him shout from the road. "I have cut down the
tree whar that bullet lodged and burnt it with a slow fire, and the fire
that's to burn another tree, a scrub oak, may be slow but it is a
comin'. Do you hear me over thar?"
"A man has to be mighty deaf not to hear a wolf howl," Jasper replied,
and took his way back to the mill where Laz and Margaret were waiting
for him.
"Was it Peters you saw goin' into the yard?" Margaret inquired, and the
old fellow answered: "Looked mighty like him--fur a time I thought it
was, but my eyes ain't as good as they was."
In the meantime Jim was fighting his way through the briars and over the
rough ground of the short cut from the little county town. And when he
reached the road he saw Mrs. Mayfield coming to meet him.
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