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"Stand back thar a minit, will ye," he said to Harrison, with a languid wave of his crippled hand; "I want ter speak to this yer man." Harrison drew back a few paces and the master sought to take the wounded man's hand, but he was stopped by a gesture. "Where hev you put Cressy?" McKinstry said slowly. "I don't understand you," stammered Ford.
"I'm man enough ter take yore measure," she flung back at him, "an' I'm comin' towards ye right now. Ef yore hands ain't high when I git's thar, I aims ter kill ye." She moved forward and the bully gave grudgingly back, but at that instant the gigantic on-looker casually laid hand upon him by one shoulder and flung him sidewise as casually as a terrier tosses a rat.
The phlegmatic German stirred to excitability in quest of a "small cask of lager and large box of cheese;" John Chinaman "Hi yah'd" for one "bag lice all samee hab one Melican man," while a chivalric but seedy-looking Southerner, who seemed to have "seen better days," wished he "might be if he didn't lay a pe-yor of boots thar whar that blanket whar."
Then reverting to his own absorption. "War it you-uns ez I hearn say thar war word kem ter the crossroads 'bout some revenuers raid in' 'round some-whar in the woods?" The look of surprise cast upon him seemed to his alert anxiety to betoken suspicion. "Laws-a-massy, naw!" exclaimed his interlocutor.
"They're losing virtue fast enough," he observed, throwing the naked ear into the bin and reaching for another. "Why, when I was young thar warn't nothin' in the way of meanness that a good woman wouldn't put up with. They'd shut thar eyes to Hagars, white or black, rather than lose the respect of men by seemin' to be aware of any immodesty."
Flashes of fire suddenly appeared in the forest toward which they ran, and death cries came from the two warriors who pursued. Shif'less Sol uttered an exultant gasp. "The boys!" he said. "They're thar in the woods, a-helpin'." Daunted by the sudden covering fire, the pursuing mob fell back for a few moments, and the two fugitives plunged into the deep and friendly shadows of the woods.
Suddenly she laid both her hands on his shoulders and under her touch a tremor raced through his arteries. The mountains seemed to grow unsteady. "Ye're ther only man hyar I kin plum, teetotally depend on. When the bank opens termorrer, I wants ye ter be thar. I don't want ye ter go with me on ther trip back home.
She struck her fist against the earth. "Thar wasn't a man I ever saw," she said, "that didn't foller after me, 'n' do fur me, 'n' wait fur a word from me. They'd hev let me set my foot on 'em if I'd said it. Thar wasn't nothin' I mightn't hev done not nothin'. An' now an' now " and, she tore the grass from its earth and flung it from her. "Go on," he said. "Go on and say your worst."
While the excellent fresh beef and bread and the vile coffee, dried peaches and molasses were being consumed, he of the horseshoe remarked, in tones which percolated through a huge stop-gap of bread: "Wall, I seen that thar Pacer to-day, nigh enough to put a plait in his tail." "What, you didn't shoot?" "No, but I come mighty near it."
'Well, ask God to make you good, and that will be your home; for Jesus loves little children. An' he jump'd on his hoss and rode away, while I stood thar, wonderin' what sort of a man that could be, that knew so much 'bout God and heaven. Now I must fin' God, to ask 'im to make me good; an' f'om this man's 'scription, he must be settin' on some cloud.
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