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Across his mule's withers balanced a rifle. His face was bearded and sad. "Mornin' Rat-Ankle," drawled our driver, halting the team for converse. "Mornin', Pate," came the nasal reply. There was a long interval of silence while the mounted man contemplated us with an unabashed stare. Finally he spoke again. "Mornin', strangers," he said.
When the reporters appeared the judge was surprised, but his wily composure had betrayed no evidence of chagrin, and he had halted affairs to chat with the pencil-wielders while his bailiff provided them with a table and chairs just below the rostrum. Then had come the call of the cases against the alleged murderers of Rat-Ankle, and the attorney's prompt motion to swear Garvin off the bench.
He paused and seemed relieved when the attorney nodded his understanding. "I just want ter know ef you won't bring yer fellers ter county co'te any day this week that suits you an' answer fer the killin' of Rat-Ankle. I'm namin' it to yer like a friend, an' I'm askin' you ter set the day. Hit ain't nothin' but a matter of givin' bail noways." "For whom have you warrants?" asked Marcus.
My companion even ventured to bend down as we returned and strike a match over the fallen body in the brush. As it flared up, I recognized with a shock, the thin, saddened face of the sockless man who had accosted us in the road, and whom our driver had called Rat-Ankle. He now lay doubled in a shapeless heap, and dead.
The only allusion to the ambuscade came from her. "Our folks got Rat-Ankle," she announced somewhat triumphantly. "But they didn't see nary other face of them that lay-wayed 'em." "Don't pay no attention to Mother," said Marcus more hastily than I had before heard him speak; "at times she gets childish." The physician nodded.
Only the aged woman showed a flash of unexpected fire as she demanded, "Didn't ye git nary one of them?" "We got Rat-Ankle," drawled an unshaven lout with a revolting note of placid satisfaction. "That's better'n not gettin' nary one," commended the old woman. Her voice revealed the hereditary source of Marcus' ability for sincere hating.
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