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 by giving back their land to the English people and clearing rout. They all put it on to me; and right they are. I regard Oates as my property; my convert; captive of my bow and spear."

"Captive of your long bow, I imagine," said the Colonel. "I bet you told him a good many things that nobody but a shrewd business man would have been innocent enough to believe."

"If I use the long bow," replied Pierce with dignity, "it is a weapon with heroic memories proper to a yeomen of England. With what more fitting weapon could we try to establish a yeomanry?"

"There is something over there," said Crane quietly, "that looks to me rather like another sort of weapon."

They had by this time come in full sight of the farm buildings which crowned the long slope; and beyond a kitchen-garden and an orchard rose a thatched roof with a row of old-fashioned lattice windows under it; the window at the end standing open. And out of this window at the edge of the block of building protruded a big black object, rigid and apparently cylindrical, thrust out above the garden and dark against the morning daylight.