“I ain’t got any hard feelin’s at all, marm.  I pity you, and here’s a ten-dollar bill that I’ll advance from the town.  I reckon I’ll wait till after you’re a widder before I take you to the poorhouse.”

She clutched the bill and ran out.  He watched her scurry down the street with satisfaction wrinkling under his beard.  “It was a kind of happy idee and it seems to be workin’,” he observed.  “I’ve allus thought I knew enough about cowards to write a book on ’em.  We’ll see!”

That night there were no alarms in Smyrna.  Cap’n Sproul, walking to his office the next forenoon, mentally scored one on the right side of his calculations.

When he heard Mr. Luce in the village square and looked out on him, he scored two, still on the right side.  Mr. Luce bore his grisly sack, but he did not carry a stick of dynamite in his hand.

“Goin’ to put my wife in the poorhouse, hey?” he squalled.

Cap’n Sproul scored three.  “She got at him and unloaded!” he murmured.  “And it fixed him, if I know cowards.”

“She’s goin’ to be a widder, hey?  I’m afeard o’ daminite, hey?  I’ll show ye!” He swung the sack from his shoulder, and held it up in both hands for the retreating populace to see.  “I jest as soon flam this whole thing down here in the ro’d.  I jest as soon kick it.  I jest as soon set on it and smoke my pipe.  I’m an outlaw and I ain’t afeard of it.  You use me right and let my wife alone, or I’ll show ye.”

Cap’n Sproul, sailor-habit always strong with him, had for a long time kept one of his telescopes hanging beside a window in the town office.  He took this down and studied the contour of the bumps that swelled Mr. Luce’s sack.  His survey seemed to satisfy him.  “Tone of his talk is really enough—­but the shape of that bag settles it with me.”

The next moment all of Smyrna that happened to be in sight of the scene gasped with horror on beholding the first selectman walk out of the town house and stalk directly across the square toward the dynamiter.

“You go back,” screamed Mr. Luce, “or I’ll flam it!”

But no longer was Mr. Luce’s tone dauntless and ferocious.  The Cap’n’s keen ear caught the coward’s note of querulousness, for he had heard that note many times before in his stormy association with men.  He chuckled and walked on more briskly.

“I’ll do it—­I swear I will!” said Mr. Luce, but his voice was only a weak piping.

In spite of itself Smyrna stopped, groaned, and squatted where it stood when Mr. Luce swung the sack and launched it at the intrepid selectman.  As he threw it, the outlaw turned to run.  The Cap’n grabbed the sack, catapulted it back, and caught the fleeing Mr. Luce squarely between the shoulders; and he went down on his face with a yell of pain.  The next moment Smyrna saw her first selectman kicking a bleating man around and around the square until the man got down, lifted up his hands, and bawled for mercy.