Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/360

 the pitcher of milk and have a supper and breakfast put up for them. Being apprehensive that some of the Buster band might be on the watch, hoping to collect some damaging evidence against the farmer that would warrant them in burning his house, Joe Wayring and his friends did not once venture across the threshold, although often urged, but ate a lunch and drank their fill of milk while sitting on the back steps. When the boys offered to pay for being so royally entertained, Mr. Holmes would not listen to it. By putting it out of the power of those sheep-killing dogs to do any more mischief, they had done him and all the rest of the law-abiding men in the settlement a kindness, and he wished they could stay there for a week so that he and his neighbors might show them how grateful they were for it. If any citizen of that region had shot those dogs, he would have been homeless before another week had passed over his head.

"I hope that Matt will not think that a citizen did do it, and proceed to wreak vengeance upon some one against whom he happens to hold a grudge," said Roy, as they moved