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Toot's never satisfied if he ain't in a row o' some sort. He will always manage to pick a quarrel out of something. He's mighty troublesome, especially when he's drinkin'. He was pretty full over there that night, an' kept dancin' with his hat on. Mis' Lumpkin, who give the dance, asked 'im quietly to take it off an' behave like a gentleman. That made 'im mad, an' he swore he'd die first.
It was drab, as drab as Toot's old rain-coat. Toot was "our coloured boy." That is the way we described him. Father had brought him home from the war, and had sent him to school, and then apprenticed him to a miller.
The sheriff was becoming angered. He grasped Wambush's hand and tried to take the knife away, but Toot's fingers were like coils of wire. "I'll see you damned fust!" grunted Wambush, and, powerless to do anything else, he spat in the sheriff's face. "d n you, I'll kill you!" roared Warlick, and he struck Wambush on the jaw.
"Let go that knife!" The sheriff spoke the last word almost in a scream, and he beat Wambush's knuckles so furiously that the knife fell to the ground. He then pinned Toot's legs to the earth with his knees, and held the knife up to a man in the crowd. "Keep it jest like it is fur evidence," he panted. "Don't shet it up or tetch the blade." Disarmed, Wambush seemed suddenly overcome with fear.
The silence of the couple behind convinced him that it was Bates and Harriet, for men in love do not talk much. Mrs. Wambush turned her head and took off her gingham bonnet to get a good look at the man her son had tried twice to kill. Her features were so much like Toot's that Westerfelt, who had never seen her before, thought he had discovered the fountain-head of the young outlaw's villany.
"Shake hands," would be Toot's next advance. Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. "I say!" cried Toots one evening, finding Paul looking out of the window. "I say, what do you think about?" "Oh, I think about a great many things," replied Paul. "Do you, though?" said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in itself surprising.
Wambush tried to kick him in the stomach, but Bradley prevented it by jerking him backward. It now became a struggle between three men and one, and that one really seemed equal in strength to the other three. "Drap the knife!" yelled Warlick again, and he drew a big revolver, and with the butt of it began to hammer Toot's clinched fingers.
"That couple don't seem to be dancing," Westerfelt remarked, with a glance at Wambush and Harriet, as he and his partner took a place in front of the fire. "No," she answered. "Toot sorter sprained his foot at a log-rollin' to-day." "And she won't dance without him, is that it?" "She would, but none o' the boys won't ask her when Toot's on hand." "Ah, I see engaged?" "No.
"Ah, Toot's gal; mortgaged property, I reckon, or soon will be; she's as purty as red shoes, though, an' as peert as a cricket." Westerfelt sat down on the side of his bed and drew off his boots. "What sort of a man is he, Luke?" "Bad bad; no wuss in seven States." "Fighting man?"
Washburn sat down on his bed, pulled off his shoes, and dropped them on the puncheon floor. "But he's got the'r ear, an' you hain't, Mr. Westerfelt. He'd grab at a chance like this an' you'd never be able to disprove anything. Toot's got some unprincipled friends that 'ud go any length to help him in rascality."
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