Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/370

 thing that makes me mad. I do wish I could get my two hands onto them boys fur a little while, an' you fellers here to help me. I'd larrup 'em so't they wouldn't ever come nigh here agin, I bet you."

"I don't know whether you would or not," replied Daily. "I kinder liked 'em, and as long as they ain't officers—"

"That's so," interrupted Matt. "But they're jest the chaps to put the constables onto your trail an' mine. That's their best holt. Didn't you say that if you was in my place you wouldn't rest easy till everybody who had had a hand in mistreatin' you had been burned outen house an' home? Well, them are three of 'em."

"Now why didn't you say so?" demanded the chief of the Buster band.

"If we'd only knowed that, we'd a kept 'em for you," added Spence's voice. "Wouldn't we, Dave? Now that I come to think of it, the youngsters never told us who they was or where they come from, and we didn't think to ask them."

"They'd a lied to you if you had," said