found the secret of our home: we might be surprised in it
before I was aware; and what course to take for my
security I knew not.

As we breakfasted, I opened my whole heart to my
mother. If she said so, I would carry all our little
property, piece by piece, back to old Thunberg, the junk-
dealer, and with her parrot and my umbrella we would go
out to Kansas, as we used to propose. We would give up
the game. Or, if she thought best, we would stand on the
defensive. I would put bottle-glass on the upper edges
of the fences all the way round.

There were four or five odd revolvers at The Ship,
and I would buy them all, with powder and buck-shot
enough for a long siege. I would teach her how to load,
and while she loaded I would fire, till they had quite
enough of attacking us in our home. Now it has all gone
by, I should be ashamed to set down in writing the
frightful contrivances I hatched for destroying these
"creatures," as I called them, or, at least, frightening
them, so as to prevent their coming thither any more.

"Robin, my boy," said my mother to me, when I gave
her a chance at last, "if they came in here to-night--
whoever `they' may be--very little is the harm that they
could do us. But if Mr. Kennedy and twenty of his police
should come in here over the bodies of--five times five
are twenty-five, twenty-five times eleven are--two
hundred and seventy-five people whom you will have killed