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 usual superciliousness, as his fingers busily prodded the saddlebags on Zenas's horse, "methinks I feel bullets!"

"Bullets!" James turned upon Sally, as she reluctantly slid down from her horse. "So," he jeered, "that was what my mother was about this morn, after all! Bullet moulding, eh? Well, we be the gainers for it." And his young mouth became set and grim.

Sally glanced around the deserted stable yard helplessly, and Zenas groaned. Then, all at once, the girl screamed for help.

James only grinned. "Ye gain nothing by screeching!" he mocked. "Think ye we did not know Samuel Munn was absent before we followed ye here? Take us for boobies, mistress?"

But again Sally's cries shattered the sunlit stillness of the inn yard. "Help! Help!" Then Stockton's hand was clamped over the girl's mouth.

"Odd's fiends!" James had torn a piece of hemp from his pocket and was busily binding his brother's hands behind him. He glanced up impatiently at Stockton. "Could ye not keep her quiet, sir?" he snapped. "Not that it will do ye any good an ye yell!" he added to Sally.

But all at once his jaw dropped. For out of the kitchen door came pelting Samuel Munn and a stout hostler, as well. And Stockton and James