f-f-fetch in the s-s-spoils. There, do you understand about the
s-s-spring-gun trap now, Steve?"

"Oh! I knew all that before, only you mixed me up by giving it that
name," the other hastily replied. "But it strikes me that'd be a pretty
rough deal for us to play. It might answer if the thief were an animal,
but a human being is different."

"All the same," retorted Toby, savagely, "he's a t-t-thief, and outside
the p-p-pale of the law."

"Just so," Steve went on, and Max was surprised at his moderation,
because, as a rule, Steve had always been the most reckless one of the
crowd; "but suppose now we found that we'd done more than we calculated
on, Toby? A charge of small birdshot starts out on its errand a whole
lot like a bullet. It doesn't commence to scatter till it gets just so
far away from the muzzle of the gun; depending on the size of the bore,
and the way the barrel is choked. I've known a charge of shot to tear a
hole right through a board when fired at close range. At a distance it
would only have scattered out, and peppered the whole fence. And, Toby,
we might feel rather bad if we found we'd killed a man, even if he was a
thief!"

Toby did not answer to that fling. The truth of the matter was he
shivered at the gruesome picture Steve's words drew before his mental
vision; for Toby was not at all bloodthirsty.

Max now took a hand in the conversation.

"Listen, fellows," he went on to say, "it strikes me that when we set