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For some time previous a lone highwayman had robbed solitary miners on their way to Fairbanks with gold-dust, and now a posse was organised that went the rounds of the creeks and gathered up the dust and bore it on mule-back to the bank, escorted by half a dozen armed and mounted men. Sawed-off shotguns were the favourite weapons, and one judged them deadly enough at short range.
Dave's maw'd been makin' it. An' Elsie Cameron said we'd gotter find it, or when Arabella's fella'd come he'd bust up somethin'!" The doctor uttered a sharp exclamation. "When is he coming?" "I dunno," answered Tim wonderingly. "She never told us. Elsie Cameron needn't 'a' got so mad, either," put in Davy aggrievedly. "It was her put us up to it in the first place, 'cause Sawed-Off "
Now, inasmuch as Sawed-Off was working his way through the Academy, and paying his own expenses, without assistance except from what small earnings he could make himself, it was only natural that he should always be the one who always had a little money to lend to the other fellows, though they had their funds from home.
"Yes, an' I'd have to help Elsie anyhow," added Davy, with an air of crushing responsibility. "Ye see, she's a sort o' a sister, ye know, Tim, 'count o' Jean." Tim made a horrible grimace. "Well, come on! Let's think o' somethin' good an' awful to do to Sawed-Off!" he cried, anxious to change the subject. All winter the double wooing of Miss Long had caused great excitement in the village.
Leisurely the stage rolled up-grade toward the crossing. The Mexican driver was half asleep and the "shotgun messenger" was indolently rolling a cigarette, his sawed-off gun between his knees. Alan McKinstra was the name of this last young gentleman. Only yesterday he had gone to work for Morse, and this was the first job that had been given him.
Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave. "No doubt it is an American shotgun," White Mason continued. "I seem to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to me. There is some evidence then, that this man who entered the house and killed its master was an American." MacDonald shook his head.
There was the sharp bark of a sawed-off revolver, and the wounded man just reached the shelter of a doorway as the bullet sang over the spot on which he had stood a second before. The sight unnerved Hamilton. He clutched the reporter's arm. "Chinese, Camorrists, sweatshop workers, and negroes!" he cried, a hysterical note in his voice. "Are there no Americans in an American city?"
While Miss Long, flushed with victory, was holding her horse till the judge fastened the ticket to his tossing head, Sawed-Off Wilmott stepped forward, feeling sure that the place of honor by Ella Anne's side would certainly be his.
There were many barbed-wire fences to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it painfully at various spots. The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from these barbs, but he only gasped: "I'm punctured." There were long, steep hills to scramble up and to jolt down.
The little bit of a sawed-off toad sings like a canary. If you don't look at 'em, they're great." They were superb.
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