The two burst out laughing scornfully. 'Don't wonder you cover it
up,' said the first rifleman.

Corporal Sam pulled off his _poncho_. 'I'd offer to fight the both
of you,' he said, 'but 'tis time wasted with a couple of white-livers
that don't dare fetch a poor child across a roadway. Let me go by;
_you_'ll keep, anyway.'

'Now look here, sonny--' The first rifleman blocked his road.
'I don't bear no malice for a word spoken in anger: so stand quiet
and take my advice. That house isn't goin' to take fire. 'Cos why?
'Cos as Bill says, we've _been_ there--there and in the next house,
now burnin'--and we know. 'Cos before leavin'--the night before last
it was--some of our boys set two barrels o' powder somewheres in the
next house, on the ground floor, _with_ a slow match. That's why
_we_ left; though, as it happened, the match missed fire. But the
powder's there, and if you'll wait a few minutes now you'll not be
disapp'inted.'

'You left the child behind!'

'Well, we left in a hurry, as I tell you, and somehow in the hurry
nobody brought him along. I'm sorry for the poor little devil, too.'
The fellow swung about. 'See him there at the window, now! If you
want him put out of his pain--'

He lifted his rifle. Corporal Sam made a clutch at his arm to drag
it down, and in the scuffle both men swayed out upon the roadway.
And with that, or a moment later, he felt the rifleman slip down