"Do you know who I am?" asked Harry, severely. "The running rebel that we all look for." "Rebels don't run. Besides, there are no rebels. Anyway I'm not the man you're looking for. My name is Robin Hood." "Robin Hood?" "Yes, Robin Hood! Didn't you ever hear of him?" "Never." "Then you have the honor of hearing of him and meeting him at the same time. As I said, my name is Robin Hood and my trade is that of a benevolent robber. I lie around in the greenwood, and I don't work. I've a lot of followers, Friar Tuck and others, but they're away for a while. They're as much opposed to work as I am. That's why they're my followers. We're the friends of the poor, because they have nothing we want, and we're the enemies of the rich because they have a lot we do want and that we often take. Still, we couldn't get along very well, if there were no rich for us to rob. It's like taking sugar water from a maple tree. We won't take too much, because it would kill the tree and we want to take its sugar water again, and many times. Do you understand?" "Yes," replied the big youth, but Harry knew he didn't. Harry meanwhile was listening keenly to all that was passing in the forest, and he was sure that no other soldier had wandered near. It was perhaps partly a feeling of loneliness on his own part that caused him to linger in his talk with Michael Stanislav. "Michael," he continued, "you appreciate our respective positions, don't you?" "Ah!" said Michael, in a puzzled voice. "I've explained carefully to you that I'm Robin Hood, and you at the present moment represent the rich." "I am not rich. Before I turn soldier I work in a mill at Bridgeport." "That's all very well, but you can't get out of it by referring to your past. Just now you are a proxy of the rich, and it's my duty to rob you." The mouth of the big fellow expanded into a wide grin. "You won't rob me," he said. "I have not a cent." "But I'm going to rob you just the same. Don't you dare to drop a hand toward the pistols in your belt. If you do I'll blow your head off. I'm covering you with a double-barreled shotgun. Each barrel contains about twenty buckshot, and at close range their blast would be so terrific that you'd make an awful looking corpse." "I hold up my hands a long time. Don't want to be any kind of a corpse." "That's the good boy. Steady now. Don't move a muscle. I'm going to rob you. It's a brief and painless operation, much easier than pulling a tooth." He deftly removed the two pistols and the accompanying ammunition from the man's belt, placing them in his own. His belt of cartridges he put on the ground beside the fallen rifle, and then as he felt a glow of triumph he passed the well-filled knapsack from the stalwart shoulders of the other to his own shoulders, equally stalwart. "Is everything in it first class, Michael?" he demanded with much severity. "The best. Our army feeds well."