"Git up somethin' to eat, mammy," he said with rough gentleness, and without another look or word she turned with her apron at her eyes to the kitchen door. The old man glared out the window, the boy sank on a chair at the corner of the fireplace, and in the face of one of the men there was sympathy. The other, shifty of eyes and crafty of face, spoke harshly. "How much o' this reward do you want?" Old Jason wheeled and the other man cried sternly: "Shut up, you fool!" "You lop-yeared rattlesnake!" began old Jason, and with a contemptuous gesture dismissed him. "How much is that reward?" The other man hesitated, and then with the thought that the fact would soon be world-known answered promptly: "For the capture and conviction of the murderer--one hundred thousand dollars." The old man gasped at the amazing sum; his face worked suddenly with convulsive rage and calmed in a sudden way that made the watching boy know that something was going to happen. Quietly old Jason walked over to the fire and stood with his back to it. He pulled out his pipe, filled it, and turned again to the mantel-piece as though to reach for a match, but instead whipped two big revolvers from it and wheeled. "Hands up, men!" he said quietly. For a moment the two were paralyzed, but the thick-set man, whose instincts were quicker, obeyed slowly. The other one started to laugh. "Up!" called the old man sternly, levelling one pistol, and the laugh stopped, the man's face paled, and his hands flew high. "Git their guns fer a minute, Jasie, an' put em' up hyeh on the mantel. A hundred thousand dollars is a LEETLE too much." The kitchen door opened and again the old woman peered through her spectacles within. "I knowed you wouldn't do it, pap," she said. "Dinner's ready--come on in now, men, an' git a bite to eat." The thin man's shifty eyes roved to his companion, who had almost begun to smile and who muttered to himself as he rose: "Well, by God!" In utter silence the meal went through, except that the old man, with his pistols crossed in his lap, kept urging his guests to the full of their appetites. Jason ate like a wolf. "Git a poke, mammy," said old Jason when the boy dropped knife and fork, "an' fill it full o' victuals." And still with a smile the thick-set man watched her gather food from the table, put it in a paper sack, and hand it to the boy. "Now git, Jasie--these men air goin' to stay hyeh with me fer' bout an hour, an' then they can go atter ye ef they think they can ketch ye." With no word at all even of good-by, little Jason noiselessly disappeared. A few minutes later, sitting in front of the fire with his pistols still in his lap, old Jason Hawn explained: