Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/69

 'Though I don't see whar you got no such title, 'pistols let it be,' says I.

"I hadn't never heard tell of seconds in them days, so, next shore leave we has, we goes together to a pawnshop and buys a gun apiece, lads, and then we makes for a ole field, nice and quiet, outside the town. 'Now,' says he, 'le's turn back to back and step off fifty paces.' 'I ain't got no eyes in the back of my head,' says I. 'And you don't need none,' says he, mild as a spring mornin'. Then, blister my boots, lads, when I faces round from east to west, that scoundrel he boxed the compass in his tracks and comes back to whar he starts from and he ups and whacks me a murderous thump on the skull with the butt of his pistol, and I falls like a log on the ground, jus' like a log."

The Cap'n paused at this dramatic point to take another draw on his pipe.

The excited Jimmy hastened to ask, "How did you know he hit you with a pistol if you didn't see him?

"How would you know, my mate, ef lightning was to strike you? I laid thar fer two hours limp an' pacified, and when I comes to and pulls