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Updated: May 7, 2025
The two were joined at this juncture by Battersleigh, who had come over to pay a morning visit, and who now stood looking on with some interest at the preparations in progress. "It's makin' ye a robe is it, Ned, me boy?" said he. "I'm bound it's a fine thing ye'll do. I'll give yer four dollars if ye'll do as much for me. Ye wouldn't be leavin' old Batty to sleep cold o' nights, now, wud ye, Ned?"
Battersleigh and Franklin had been friends in the army, and their feet had not yet wandered apart in the days of peace.
"Yes," said Franklin, "I know, Battersleigh. You've been a proud one," "Tut, tut, me boy; nivver mind. Ye'll know I came out here to make me fortune, there bein' no more fightin' daycint enough to engage the attention of a gintleman annywhere upon the globe. I came to make me fortune. An' I've made it.
At Ellisville there was no ordered way of living. The frontier was yet but one vast camp. It was, as Battersleigh had said, the beginning of things. Many of the white-topped wagons began to come from the East, not following the railroad, but travelling the trail of the older adventurers who had for a generation gone this way, and whose pathway the railroad took for its own.
"Well, yis. A small matter." "A quarter-section or so?" "A quarter-township or so wud be much nearer," said Battersleigh dryly. "You don't mean it?" "Shure I do. It's a fool for luck; allowin' Batty's a fool, as ye've always thought, though I've denied it. Now ye know the railroad's crazy for poppylation, an' it can't wait. It fairly offers land free to thim that'll come live on it.
Then he clinched his hands and thrust them forward, knuckles downward, the Indian sign for death, for falling dead or being struck down. With his delivery this was unmistakable. "Me," he said, "me dead; white man go. "He wants to fight Juan by himself," cried Franklin. "Yes, and b'gad he's doin' it for pure love of a fight, and hurray for him!" cried Battersleigh. "Hurray, boys! Give him a cheer!"
Now, me Angly-Saxon, he's the prettiest fightin' man on earth, an' he's fightin' fer land, er buyin' land, er stalin' land, the livin' day an' cintury on ind. He'll own the earth!" "No foreign Anglo-Saxon will ever own America," said Franklin grimly. "Well, I'm tellin' ye he'll be ownin' some o' this land around here." "I infer, Battersleigh," said Franklin, "that you have made a sale."
"Tut, tut! me boy," he said, "I well know how your wishes lie. It's a noble gyurl ye've chosen, as a noble man should do. She may change her thought to-morrow. It's change is the wan thing shure about a woman." Franklin shook his head mutely, but Battersleigh showed only impatience with him. "Go on with your plans, man," said he, "an' pay no attintion to the gyurl!
Hurt and jarred, he yet kept upright, and at last he did get the horse's head up and saw the wild performance close as quickly as it had begun. The pony ceased his grunting and fell into a stiff trot, with little to indicate his hidden pyrotechnic quality. Franklin whirled him around and rode up to where Battersleigh and Curly had now joined.
None had chosen Battersleigh to the leadership. He came as mere guest, invited as were the others. There had been no election for master of ceremonies, nor had Battersleigh yet had time to fully realize how desperate was this strait in which these folk had fallen. It appeared to him merely that, himself having arrived, there was naught else to cause delay.
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