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Carl was rubbing down the Big Gray. He had been hauling ice all the morning for the brewery. The Gray was under the cart-shed, a flood of winter sunlight silvering his shaggy mane and restless ears. The Swede was scraping his sides with the currycomb, and the Big Gray, accustomed to Cully's gentler touch, was resenting the familiarity by biting at the tippet wound about the neck of the young man.
So when Patsy came limping up the garden path this morning, rubbing his eyes, his voice choking, and the tears streaming, and, burying his little face in Cully's jacket, poured out his tale of insult and suffering, that valiant defender of the right pulled his cap tight over his eyes and began a still-hunt through the tenements.
It was a warm night for early spring, and Carl had his coat over his arm. When they reached the outer stable fence the one nearest the village Cully's keen nose scented a peculiar odor. "Who's been a breakin' de lamp round here, Carl?" he asked, sniffing close to the ground. "Holy smoke!
There, as he afterwards expressed it, he "mopped up the floor" with one after another of the ringleaders, beginning with young Billy McGaw, Dan's eldest son and Cully's senior. Tom was dumfounded at the attack on Patsy. This was a blow upon which she had not counted. To strike her Patsy, her cripple, her baby!
So open yur head, ole hoss, and let's have it." Brief and graphic as is Cully's narrative, it takes Walt still less time to put his former associates in possession of what has happened to himself and Hamersley, whom he introduces to them as the companion of his perilous adventures the second of the two believed to have been buried alive!
There is no further discussion. Cully's opinion is all-powerful, and determines the course to be pursued. The halt intended to be temporary, is to continue till near sunset, despite expostulations, almost prayerful appeals, from those who have left desolate homes behind, and who burn with impatience to ride forward and rescue their captive kindred.
Indeed, the closer he got to Billy's coat the more absorbed he seemed to be in the view beyond. Here an extraordinary thing happened. There was a dipping of Cully's head between Billy's legs, a raising of both arms, grabbing Billy around the waist, and in a flash the hope of the house of McGaw was swept off his feet, Cully beneath him, and in full run toward Tom's house.
Cully's eye caught the new movement as he turned the corner. His song ceased. When Mr. Finnegan had anything very serious on his mind he never sang. When, some time after, Billy emerged from O'Leary's door, he had a two-dollar bill tightly squeezed in his right hand. Part of this he spent on his way home for a box of cigarettes; the balance he invested in a mysterious-looking tin can.
When they returned it was nearly midnight. Cully had taken off his "choker," as he called it, and had curled it outside his hat, They had walked over from the show, and the tight clutch of the collar greatly interfered with Cully's discussion of the wonderful things he had seen. Besides, the mule had ruined it completely for a second use.
And, sure enough, when the pursuers, at length at the creek's mouth, enter the canon through which it disembogues its crystal water into the grander and more turbid stream, they discovered certain traces of the pursued having passed along its banks. Another mile of travelling, the same silence observed, with caution increased, and there is no longer a doubt about the truth of Cully's conjecture.
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