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Updated: May 7, 2025
What he was struggling against had come down to him from a long line of ancestors, men who would rather have died than brook the thought of a rival, especially in an inferior; men who would have spurned the love of their hearts if it were stained with falsehood under any circumstances, and when, as it was in Westerfelt's case, the provocation was not only deceit, but ardent love for such a man ah, there was the rub!
Hearing Westerfelt's remark, he cried: "My Lord! you must go inside an' lie down; fix a place, Miss Harriet, an' send fer a doctor, quick!" Harriet ran into the house, and Mrs. Floyd and Worthy supported Westerfelt between them into a room adjoining the parlor. They made him lie on a bed, and Worthy opened his waistcoat and shirt. "Good gracious, it's runnin' like a wet-weather spring," he said.
Westerfelt tried to shake him off, but he was unsuccessful. He attempted to strike him in the face, but Wambush either dodged the thrusts or caught them in his thick hair. It seemed that Westerfelt's only chance now was to throw his assailant down, but his strength had left him, Wambush's claws had sunk into his neck like prongs of steel. He could not breathe.
They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well mated. Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began to force him backward. In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him. "Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm. "Part 'em!"
Westerfelt heard the beat of hoofs behind him. He was sure Bates and Harriet were approaching, but he dared not look around. Through the trees came the sound of singing from the camp-ground. The horse behind got nearer and nearer, till it stopped with its nose in the back part of Westerfelt's buggy, Westerfelt did not turn his head.
"Hit 'im in the bread-basket, John!" cried Luke Bradley. It was a happy suggestion. Westerfelt struck Wambush in the stomach. With a gasp and an oath, Wambush doubled up and released Westerfelt's throat. The two men now clinched breast to breast, and, with arms round each other's bodies, each began to try to throw the other down.
"Thar's something that has jest struck me, Westerfelt," he began, in the low voice of an electioneering candidate, and he possessed himself of one of Westerfelt's lapels and began to rub his thick, red fingers over it.
"Boys, boys, behave!" she cried, and as the wrestlers separated she continued, apologetically, "I clean forgot thar wusn't a sign of a towel on the roller; I wonder what you intended to wipe on; here, take this one, an' hang it up when you're through." Then she turned to Westerfelt's door and looked into his room. "Are you ready, young man?" she asked. "Yes," he replied, coming out.
"John Westerfelt's had enough trouble to kill a ordinary man, Mis' Dawson," she said, "an' I'm his friend to the backbone; ef you've got any ill-will agin 'im, don't mention it to me. Besides, now would be a good time fer you to show Christian forbearance. He's been thoughtless, but heer lately he is a changed man, an' I believe he's tryin' his level best to do right in God's sight.
She was trying to raise him, when the door opened and her mother appeared. "What's the matter, Harriet?" "He has fainted I don't know, he may be dead. Look, mother!" Mrs. Floyd raised Westerfelt's head and turned his face upward. "No, he's still breathing." She opened his shirt hastily. "His wound has not broken; we must get him to bed again. How did he happen to be here?"
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