"I was man enough to catch you a couple of times and it was only your good luck that you weren't hung up here in Track's End by the neck," I said, a little put out by the way he spoke, because I was almost as big as he was. "Oh, well, no matter. Now you--" "I'll tell you the reason I was sent out," I broke in, just thinking of something. "What is it?" "I can say all there is to say as well as anybody, but I'm a poor shot, so it was decided that if I didn't get back it wouldn't make much difference in the matter of shooting you fellows down if you come any nearer." He pulled his collar down and looked at me over his crooked nose. Kaiser began to growl, but I poked him in the ribs with my foot to let him understand that there was a flag of truce on and he must behave himself. I guess Pike didn't like it, because this sounded as if we couldn't trust him, but he didn't say anything. "Well," he broke out, "there's no use of us standing here and talking. We've come after that $5,000, and you fellers know it." "We told you all we had to say about that in the letter." "Then we'll bust that safe and burn your town," he said, like a savage. "Go ahead and try it," I answered. "We're ready for you." His face, which had looked black as night all the while, now turned white with rage. "We'll try it fast enough and we'll do it fast enough, too," he cried, with some prodigious oaths, bad enough for any pirate. "Look here; I ain't got any gun with me, and I s'pose you ain't, if you're any man at all. But you're as near your gun as I am mine, hey?" "Yes," I said. "Then this here flag of truce is ended right now. When I get hold of my gun I shoot, and you're welcome to do the same!" He turned and started back on the run. So there was nothing for me but to face about and do the same. CHAPTER XVII The Fight, and not much else: except a little Happening at the End which startles me greatly. It seems a good deal to believe, but I actually half think that Kaiser had begun to get hold of the fine points of a flag of truce, and that he understood it was ended. What makes me have this idea is that I think he must have taken after Pike at first, though I wasn't doing much looking back just then, being busy at something more important; but anyhow he wasn't with me till I was halfway to the store, when he passed me with a great bark and went on tearing up the snow a few steps ahead. I wish he had got ahead sooner, as I think I ran faster trying to keep up with him; but as it was I don't know but he saved my life.