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 inquired James. "Shut thy trap and do not interfere where ye are not asked!"

"Quarreling wi' the wench gets us naught," interposed Stockton sourly, who preferred to do the quarreling himself. He pointed at Sally. "What hath she there, tied to her saddle?"

Sally started, tried to conceal her chagrin; but James's quick eyes caught it. "Ah, trouble here!" he exclaimed in a voice of triumph. "Methought that ye were in too much o' a hurry, Zenas!"

Striding toward Sally's horse, with obvious intention of rifling the saddlebags to determine their contents, he was interrupted by a young whirlwind. It was Zenas!

"Touch—touch you bags, will ye!" snarled Zenas. Sally, staring, clasped her hands as the two lads went to the ground, to roll over and over, each trying to gain the mastery of the other. Grave as the situation was, though, Sally could scarcely control hysterical laughter, for poor Zenas looked like nothing more than a bantam rooster, with his angry red face, his three-cornered hat flung into the dirt and his queue unloosed to stand on end like a cock's comb. "I'll—I'll teach ye! I'll teach ye!" he kept panting.

But, despite his courage, the odds were against the plucky fellow. Even as Stockton hastily was dismounting to participate in the already uneven battle, James deftly caught his brother's body in a