“Wilks, I could once hit a silver dollar at twenty yards.  Dad, I’ll get the thing out anyway.”  The lawyer sat down, undid his knapsack and primed his revolver, which he then placed with the box of cartridges in the pocket out of which he had thrown the fossils.  The dominie did the same, all the time saying:  “No violence! my dear friend; in this world we must pretend not to see a great many things that we cannot help seeing.”  The teamsters went by, and no further use for the revolver appeared.  Wilkinson would not allow his companion to shoot at birds or chipmunks, and, on being expostulated with, the kindly lawyer confessed that it would have been a shame to take their innocent young lives.  At last they saw a gray paper-like structure of large size on the limb of an oak pretty high up.  “I’ll bet you can’t hit that, Wilks,” said the lawyer.  “I shall try,” replied the dominie.  They fired simultaneously and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home.  After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and faced each other.

“I’ve killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me on the lip escaped,” said Coristine.

“I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple,” replied Wilkinson.

“Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?”

“Yes; they have given up the pursuit.”

“Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital.”  So he produced his flask and bathed the dominie’s temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after which Wilkinson loosened his friend’s flannel shirt and applied the same remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to the ground.  The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.

“It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he’s bound to get it.”

“Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by ’they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’”

“Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us.”

As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his friend and asked him for counsel.

“You’ve studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the Grinstun man.”

“What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue detective?”

“A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too.”

“Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?”

“As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have.”

“How?”

“Well, he is making money by cheating the Government.”

“Where is your proof?”

“Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these three teams on the road.”