“I’ve got my plan all made,” said the first selectman.  “I want you as foreman to call out the Ancient and Honer’ble Firemen’s Association and have ’em surround them woods, and we’ll take him.”

“We will, hey?” demanded Hiram, pushing back his plug hat and squinting angrily.  “What do you think that firemen’s association is for, anyway?”

“Never knew it to do anything but eat free picnics and give social dances,” retorted the Cap’n.  “I didn’t know but it was willin’ to be useful for once in its life.”

“Slur noted!” said Hiram, with acerbity.  “But you can’t expect us to pull you out of a hole that you’ve mismanaged yourself into.  You needn’t flare, now, Cap’n.  It’s been mismanaged, and that’s the sentiment of the town.  I ain’t twittin’ you because I’ve lost property.  I’m talkin’ as a friend.”

“That’s twice this mornin’ you’ve passed me that ‘friend’ handbill,” raged the selectman.  “Advertisin’ yourself, be ye?  And then leavin’ me in the lurch!  This is a friendly town, that’s what it is.  Constables, voters, firemen, and you yourself dump the whole burden of this onto me, and then stand back and growl at me!  Well, if this thing is up to me alone and friendless and single-handed, I know what I’m goin’ to do!” His tone had the grate of file against steel.

“What?” inquired his friend with interest.

“Get a gun and go out and drop that humpbacked old Injy-cracker!”

But Hiram protested fervently.

“Where would you shoot him?” he cried.  “You don’t know where to find him in them woods.  You’d have to nail him here in the village, and besides its bein’ murder right in the face and eyes of folks, you’d put a bullet into that sack o’ dynamite and blow ev’ry store, meetin’-house, and school-house in Smyrna off’m the map.  You give that up, or I’ll pass the word and have you arrested, yourself, as a dangerous critter.”

He went away, still protesting as long as he was in hearing.

Cap’n Sproul sat despondent in his chair, and gazed through the broken window at other broken windows.  Ex-Constable Nute presented himself at the pane outside and said, nervously chewing tobacco:  “I reckon it’s the only thing that can be done now, Cap’n.  It seems to be the general sentiment.”

With a flicker of hope irradiating his features, Cap’n Sproul inquired for details.

“It’s to write to the President and get him to send down a hunk of the United States Army.  You’ve got to fight fire with fire.”

Without particular display of passion, with the numb stolidity of one whose inner fires have burned out, the selectman got up and threw a cuspidor through the window at his counsellor, and then seated himself to his pondering once more.

That afternoon Mrs. Aholiah Luce came walking into the village, spent, forlorn, and draggled.  She went straight to the town office, and seated herself in front of the musing first selectman.