Simultaneously, a low and cautious voice sounded from the yard outside, "Yay, Penrod!" and Sam Williams darkened the doorway, his eye falling instantly upon the weapon in his friend's hand.
Sam seemed relieved to see it.
"You didn't get caught with it, did you?" he said hastily.
Penrod shook his head, rising.
"I guess not! I guess I got SOME brains around me," he added, inspired by Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get up pretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got MY hands on it!"
"I guess we can keep it, all right," Sam said confidentially.
"Because this morning papa was putting on his winter underclothes and he found it wasn't there, and they looked all over and everywhere, and he was pretty mad, and said he knew it was those cheap plumbers stole it that mamma got instead of the regular plumbers he always used to have, and he said there wasn't any chance ever gettin' it back, because you couldn't tell which one took it, and they'd all swear it wasn't them. So it looks like we could keep it for our revolaver, Penrod, don't it? I'll give you half of it."
Penrod affected some enthusiasm. "Sam, we'll keep it out here in the stable."
"Yes, and we'll go huntin' with it. We'll do lots of things with it!" But Sam made no effort to take it, and neither boy seemed to feel yesterday's necessity to show the other how he did. "Wait till next Fourth o' July!" Sam continued. "Oh, oh! Look out!"
This incited a genuine spark from Penrod.
"Fourth o' July! I guess she'll be a little better than any firecrackers! Just a little 'Bing!' Bing! Bing!' she'll be goin'.
'Bing! Bing! Bing!'"
The suggestion of noise stirred his comrade. "I'll bet she'll go off louder'n that time the gas-works blew up! I wouldn't be afraid to shoot her off ANY time."
"I bet you would," said Penrod. "You aren't used to revolavers the way I--"
"You aren't, either!" Sam exclaimed promptly, "I wouldn't be any more afraid to shoot her off than you would."
"You would, too!"
"I would not!"
"Well, let's see you then; you talk so much!" And Penrod handed the weapon scornfully to Sam, who at once became less self-assertive.
"I'd shoot her off in a minute," Sam said, "only it might break sumpthing if it hit it."
"Hold her up in the air, then. It can't hurt the roof, can it?"
Sam, with a desperate expression, lifted the revolver at arm's length. Both boys turned away their heads, and Penrod put his fingers in his ears--but nothing happened. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Why don't you go on if you're goin' to?"
Sam lowered his arm. "I guess I didn't have her cocked," he said apologetically, whereupon Penrod loudly jeered.
"Tryin' to shoot a revolaver and didn't know enough to cock her!
If I didn't know any more about revolavers than that, I'd--"
"There!" Sam exclaimed, managing to draw back the hammer until two chilling clicks warranted his opinion that the pistol was now ready to perform its office. "I guess she'll do all right to suit you THIS time!"
"Well, whyn't you go ahead, then; you know so much!" And as Sam raised his arm, Penrod again turned away his head and placed his forefingers in his ears.
A pause followed.
"Why'n't you go ahead?"
Penrod, after waiting in keen suspense, turned to behold his friend standing with his right arm above his head, his left hand over his left ear, and both eyes closed.
"I can't pull the trigger," said Sam indistinctly, his face convulsed as in sympathy with the great muscular efforts of other parts of his body. "She won't pull!"
"She won't?" Penrod remarked with scorn. "I'll bet _I_ could pull her."
Sam promptly opened his eyes and handed the weapon to Penrod.
"All right," he said, with surprising and unusual mildness. "You try her, then."
Inwardly discomfited to a disagreeable extent, Penrod attempted to talk his own misgivings out of countenance.
"Poor 'ittle baby!" he said, swinging the pistol at his side with a fair pretense of careless ease. "Ain't even strong enough to pull a trigger! Poor 'ittle baby! Well, if you can't even do that much, you better watch me while _I_--"
"Well," said Sam reasonably, "why don't you go on and do it then?"
"Well, I AM goin' to, ain't I?"
"Well, then, why don't you?"
"Oh, I'll do it fast enough to suit YOU, I guess," Penrod retorted, swinging the big revolver up a little higher than his shoulder and pointing it in the direction of the double doors, which opened upon the alley. "You better run, Sam," he jeered.
"You'll be pretty scared when I shoot her off, I guess."
"Well, why don't you SEE if I will? I bet you're afraid yourself."
"Oh, I am, am I?" said Penrod, in a reckless voice--and his finger touched the trigger. It seemed to him that his finger no more than touched it; perhaps he had been reassured by Sam's assertion that the trigger was difficult. His intentions must remain in doubt, and probably Penrod himself was not certain of them; but one thing comes to the surface as entirely definite--that trigger was not so hard to pull as Sam said it was.
