The stranger drew from another pocket a gold watch, with a long loop of broad black silk braid hanging from its ring. He held it in the palm of his free hand, and glanced at its open face. "It must be getting along toward noon," Lafe had the temerity to remark. There were cold shivers through his veins, but he managed to keep his tongue steady. If "cheek" could not help him, nothing could. "About as nigh noon as you're ever likely to git," said the other, making a pretence of again consulting the watch. Instinct told the lad with a flashlight swiftness that this looking at the watch was buncombe. Men who really meant to kill did not parade timepieces like that. "I haven't got anything on me that would be of any use to you," he said, with an immense effort at unconcern. "Even if I had, you wouldn't need a gun to take it away from me." "You've got a mouth on you," said the man, eying him, "and it'll be of use to me to shut it up." He lifted the pistol as he spoke, and Lafe instinctively closed his eyes, with a confused rush of thoughts in which he seemed to see his old mother sitting in the garden with the Book on her knees, and also the young Ohio officer, who somehow came in among the tall flowers beside her, and these flowers themselves were the regimental flags which the color-sergeant was unfurling. Then, as nothing happened, the boy opened his eyes again, and found himself able to look into the two black disks of the Derringer's muzzle without flinching. He could even look beyond the muzzle, as the barrels sloped downward toward him, and he now saw distinctly that the two little upright steel nipples bore no caps. The discovery made him annoyed at his own cowardice. It was easier now to be bold. "What's your idea, anyway?" he asked the man, with an added effrontery in his tone. "If you'd been going to shoot, you'd have done it long ago. This thing doesn't scare me at all, and I don't see how it does you any good. What are you getting at, anyhow?" "I'd as soon shoot you as look at you!" the other declared with angry emphasis, but lowering the weapon. "Yes, but seeing you ain't going to shoot, what are you going to do?" Lafe put in. The ruffian eyed him again. "If I agree not to hurt you, will you do what I tell you?" he demanded. "Well, maybe I will," replied the boy. His spirits rose as his contempt for this slow and shilly-shallying sort of scoundrel increased. "What is it you want me to do?" "I want you to help me carry some things I've got together over there, on the other side of the creek. Well go over now, and bring 'em back here." "I'll take another bite of bread, first," it occurred to the boy to say. He lifted a haversack, and shoved in one hand to burrow among its contents, while with his foot, as if by accident, he pushed one of the muskets lengthwise so that he might grab it the more readily if occasion required.