The usual evening meditations and geographical discussions of the monastery of hoboes had been interrupted by collecting garbage and by a quite useless cleaning of dishes that would only get dirty again. They were recuperating, returning to their spiritual plane of perfect peace, in picturesque attitudes by the fire. They scowled now. Again the K. C. Kid raised his voice: "Aw, let the bunk-house alone! What d'yuh think this is? A female cemetery?" Crook McKusick glared, but Reddy joined the rebellion with: "I'm through. I ain't no Chink laundryman." The bunch turned their heads away from Mother, and pretended to ignore her--and to ignore Crook's swaying shoulders and clenching fists. In low but most impolite-sounding voices they began to curse the surprised and unhappy Mother. Father ranged up beside her, protectingly. He was sure there was going to be a fight, and he determined to do for some one, anyway. He was trapped, desperate. Crook McKusick stood with them, too, but his glance wavered from them to the group at the fire and back again, and he was clearing his throat to speak when-- "Hands up!" came a voice from the shadows beyond the fire. CHAPTER XV While he was raising his arms so high that his cuffs were pulled half-way down to his elbows, Father was conscious that the hoboes by the fire, even the formidable Crook McKusick, were doing the same. Facing them, in the woods border, was a farmer in a coon-skin overcoat, aiming a double-barreled shot-gun, beside him two other farmers with rifles under their arms. It seemed to Father that he was in a wild Western melodrama, and he helplessly muttered, "Gosh! Can you beat it?" The man with the leveled shot-gun drawled, "I'm the deputy sheriff for this locality and I'll give you dirty bums just five minutes to pick up your duffle and git out, and keep a-going. I guess we don't need you around here. You been robbing every hen-roost for ten miles. Now step lively, and no funny business." "Stung!" muttered Crook McKusick, hopelessly. "Got us." Suddenly a downy figure--who might herself have come from a large, peaceful human hen-roost--fluttered straight at the muzzle of the sheriff's shot-gun. It was Mother. "Hands up, I told juh!" stormed the sheriff, amazedly. "Oh, look _out_, Mother!" wailed Father, rushing after her, his own hands going down to his sides in his agitation. "Look out, aunty!" echoed Crook McKusick. "That's a bad actor, that guy." But Mother continued straight at the gun, snapping: "Don't point that dratted thing at me. You bother me." The sheriff wavered. The gun dropped. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Never you mind who I am, young man. I'm responsible for these boys, though. And they promised me they wouldn't do no more stealing. They're going to work for what they get. And they got a right here on this land. They got permission. That's more than you got, I venture, with your nasty guns and all, coming around here-- Have you got a warrant?"