"I've only borrowed a little from one able to spare a good deal more
than I've got,--and the grudge I owe him isn't paid off yet."

"It is not so!" Gilbert cried. "Every cent has been earned by my own and
my mother's hard work. I was taking it to Chester, to pay off a debt
upon the farm; and the loss and the disappointment will well nigh break
my mother's heart. According to your views of things, you owe me a
grudge, but you are outside of the law, and I did my duty as a lawful
man by trying to shoot you!"

"And I, _bein'_ outside o' the law, as you say, have let you off mighty
easy, young man!" exclaimed Sandy Flash, his eyes shining angrily and
his teeth glittering. "I took you for a fellow o' pluck, not for one
that'd lie, even to the robber they call me! What's all this pitiful
story about Barton's money?"

"Barton's money!"

"Oh--ay! You didn't agree to take some o' his money to Chester?" The
mocking expression on the highwayman's face was perfectly diabolical. He
slung the saddle-bags over his shoulders, and turned to leave.

Gilbert was so amazed that for a moment he knew not what to say. Sandy
Flash took three strides up the road, and then sprang down into the
thicket.

"It is not Barton's money!" Gilbert cried, with a last desperate
appeal,--"it is mine, mine and my mother's!"