Chapter VIII. Foxy's Partner - Page 2

you!" Hughie's eyes were blazing dangerously, and Foxy handed back the half-dollar.

"O, all right. You're a pretty big fool," he said, indifferently. "'Losers seekers, finders keepers.' That's my rule."

Hughie was silent, holding his precious half-dollar in his hand, deep in his pocket.

"Say," said Foxy, changing the subject, "I guess you had better pay up for your powder and caps you've been firing."

"I haven't been firing much," said Hughie, confidently.

"Well, you've been firing pretty steady for three weeks."

"Three weeks! It isn't three weeks."

"It is. There's this week, and last week when the ink-bottle bust too soon and burnt Fusie's eyebrows, and the week before when you shot Aleck Dan, and it was the week before that you began, and that'll make it four."

"How much?" asked Hughie, desperately, resolved to know the worst.

Foxy had been preparing for this. He took down a slate-pencil box with a sliding lid, and drew out a bundle of crumbled slips which Hughie, with sinking heart, recognized as his own vouchers.

"Sixteen pennies." Foxy had taken care of this part of the business.

"Sixteen!" exclaimed Hughie, snatching up the bunch.

"Count them yourself," said Foxy, calmly, knowing well he could count on Hughie's honesty.

"Seventeen," said Hughie, hopelessly.

"But one of those I didn't count," said Foxy, generously. "That's the one I gave you to try at the first. Now, I tell you," went on Foxy, insinuatingly, "you have got how much at home?" he inquired.

"Six pennies and two dimes." Hughie's tone indicated despair.

"You've got six pennies and two dimes. Six pennies and two dimes. That's twenty--that's thirty-two cents. Now if you paid me that thirty-two cents, and if you could get a half-dollar anywhere, that would be eighty-two. I tell you what I would do. I would let you have that pistol for only one dollar more. That ain't much," he said.

"Only a dollar more," said Hughie, calculating rapidly. "But where would I get the fifty cents?" The dollar seemed at that moment to Hughie quite a possible thing, if only the fifty cents could be got. The dollar was more remote, and therefore less pressing.

Foxy had an inspiration.

"I tell you what. You borrow that fifty cents you found, and then you can pay me eighty-two cents, and--and--" he hesitated--"perhaps you will find some more, or something."

Hughie's eyes were blazing with great fierceness.

Foxy hastened to add, "And I'll let you have the pistol right off, and you'll pay me again some time when you can, the other dollar."