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"Wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow.
You and I are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you haven't lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man." The other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, "Sir, I have lived to feel it deeply." "Wa'al," said the captain, mollified, "then I've made a good cast without knowing it.
"Wa'al, you see they come frum ther East," explained Zeb apologetically. "Ah, that accounts fer it," said old Pete indulgently. "You couldn't 'spec Easterners ter know nuthin' 'bout it. 'Wa'al, young sirs, somewheres out on the desert ter the east uv here thar is three buttes a stickin' up, and right thar is Peg-leg Smith's lost mine whar they say the very sands is uv gold. "Who was Peg-leg?
"'Be I goin' with you?" I says. "'Why not? he says, ''nless you'd ruther go alone, an' he put his finger an' thumb into his vest pocket. Wa'al, ma'am, I looked at him a minute, with his shiny hat an' boots, an' fine clo'es, an' gold pin, an' thought of my ragged ole shirt, an' cotton pants, an' ole chip hat with the brim most gone, an' my tin pail an' all.
"Why, bless me, if that don't look jest like my south meddar!" exclaimed old Mr. Tyndell, as he looked at the stage. "Hush, father! The people will hear you!" whispered his wife. "Wa'al, I want 'em to!" he went on. "That's a fine piece of meddar!" Several sitting near the old farmer laughed, but no one minded it.
I need ten dollars." "Oh, dear!" moaned Uncle Ezra, as he took out his wallet, and carefully counted out ten one-dollar bills. "Couldn't you look around and get a second-hand one?" he asked hopefully. "No; we haven't time. We must soon start on the prize trip. We don't want to be late." "No, I s'pose not. Wa'al, take the money," and he parted with it, after a long look.
"Oh, no," was the reply, "you hain't betrayed none, but I know old fellers like me gen'rally tell a thing twice over while they're at it. Wa'al," he went on, "it was like this. After Charley Cullom got to be some grown he helped to keep the pot a-bilin', 'n they got on some better. 'Bout seven year ago, though, he up an' got married, an' then the fat ketched fire.
"Pray think of it as favorably as you can," he said, as they shook hands at parting. "Putty nice kind of a man," remarked David when John came back; "putty nice kind of a man. 'Bout the only 'quaintance you've made of his kind, ain't he? Wa'al, he's all right fur 's he goes. Comes of good stock, I'm told, an' looks it. Runs a good deal to emptins in his preachin' though, they say.
That was a strange fight, because neither French nor Eversole ever got into the shootin', indeed they remained frien'ly even when their supporters were most bitter." "Who carried on the feud, then?" asked Hamilton in surprise, "if the principals didn't?" "Wa'al, I guess the worst was a minister, the Rev. Bill Gambrill. Ho ran the French side an' kep' the trouble stirred up all the time."
"Wa'al, he said that when you slid down from a high place it was harder to climb back than if the fall had b'n small. An' that's why it's so hard for those who have gone down, they can see the depth o' the fall." Hamilton, who was of an argumentative turn of mind, would have protested at this, but the old mountaineer proceeded. "When the pioneers settled in the mount'ns they kind o' stuck.
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