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ARTHUR'S READY RIFLE.
327

found that it was going to be a task to read it at all, for the paper had been so often and so roughly handled that in some places the words were quite obliterated. The poem, if that was the right name for the chief law-breaker's effusion, was nearly a column in length, and it required no little effort on Roy's part to make out the first two verses of it. They ran as follows:


"it was in the town of glens fals
as you shal understand
thair lived a crowd of young men
thay was cald the buster band
and thay was accused of menny
a bad deed let them be gilty or not
but thay hunted deer the year round
and for the wardens made it hot

thair was one young man among them
the wardens all knew wel
and by this felows rifl
thair was menny a fine deer fel
he hunted upon an old stream
i would have you all to know
and sed that that was one place
the wardens dast not go"


"What was the reason the wardens dared not go there?" inquired Arthur, when Roy handed back the paper declaring that the letters were so dim he could not make sense