“Your word of honor?” asked Tag, driven to wonder despite himself.  “What good would your word of honor be?”

“It would be as good as anything I’m capable of,” Prescott responded.  “Tag, didn’t you ever have any respect for a man’s word of honor?  Didn’t you ever respect your own?”

“I got that game played on me at school, once,” leered Mosher.  “As soon as I swallowed the bait the other fellow kicked me in the shins and ran off and left me there.  Now, Prescott, I don’t want any more nonsense.  Put up your hands!”

“I’ve already declined,” Dick smiled calmly.  “To that refusal I’ll add my thanks.”

“Put up your hands, or I’ll keep the gun turned on you and pull a trigger or two.”

“Then the gun isn’t loaded,” chuckled Dick.

“Oh, isn’t it?”

“No, for you’re not bad enough, Tag, to shoot down an unarmed person who isn’t your enemy.”

“You’ll tell the officers you saw me here, won’t you?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you’re my enemy,” young Mosher argued, with thorough conviction.  “So you’ll put up your hands, and take further orders, as long as I give ’em, or you’ll be found taking a long nap on the grass here!”

“That’s another wrong guess you’ve made, Tag.”

Laughing softly, Dick dropped to a seat on the grass.

“You’re a mighty sassy fellow,” scowled young Mosher.

“I’m very disobliging sometimes,” Prescott admitted.  “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.