We'll just make sure of our ground,
first thing we do."
"It's always easy enough to be calm over the other fellow's
trouble," said Phoebe sharply, irritated in an indefinable way by
the oily optimism of the other. "It ain't your ox that's gored,
Mr. Baumberger."
They skirted the double row of grapevines, picked their way over
a spot lately flooded from the ditch, which they crossed upon two
planks laid side by side, went through an end of the currant
patch, made a detour around a small jungle of gooseberry bushes,
and so came in sight of the strawberry patch and what was taking
place near the lightning-scarred apricot tree. Baumberger
lengthened his stride, and so reached the spot first.
The boys were grouped belligerently in the strawberry patch, just
outside a line of new stakes, freshly driven in the ground.
Beyond that line stood a man facing them with a .45-.70 balanced
in the hollow of his arm. In the background stood three other
men in open spaces in the shrubbery, at intervals of ten rods or
so, and they also had rifles rather conspicuously displayed.
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