“But it ain't the Preacher's way. But I ain't the man to be held back,” said Hicks, “and patted and cooed over. Not me. Show me a snake and I stamp on it! Show me the spot and I hit it! Damn!”
He twisted his mouth. His teeth clicked again, and his crooked fingers drove the glittering needles swiftly back and forth through the leather. Coglan stared at him with prominent eyeballs and mouth open. Shays wiped his glasses, and then his red-lidded eyes with his coat sleeve.
“All frien's, Hicksy! Ain't we?” he murmured uneasily.
Coglan recovered. “An' that's right, too. Jimmy Shays is a kind man and a peaceable man, an' I'm a sensible man, an' yer an industhrious man, but yer not a wise man, Hicksy, an'”—with sudden severity—“I'll thank ye not to stomp on Tom Coglan.”
He got up. Shays rose, too, and put on his coat, and both went out of the door. Hicks gave a cackling laugh, but did not look after them.
Presently he finished the shoe, laid it down, rubbed his hands, and straightened his back. Then he went and got the torn book, sat down, and read in it half an hour or more, intent and motionless.
The factory whistles blew for twelve o'clock. He rose and went to a side cupboard, took out a leathern rifle case, put a handful of cartridges in his pockets, and left the shop.
The grocer's children in the side doorway fled inward to the darkness of the hall as he passed. The grocer's wife also saw him, and drew back behind the door. He did not notice any of them.
The long eastward-leading street grew more and more dusty and unpaved. He passed empty lots and then open fields, cornfields, clumps of woods, and many trestles of the oil wells. He climbed a rail fence and entered a large piece of woods, wet and cool. The new leaves were just starting from their buds.
It was a mild April day, with a silvery, misty atmosphere over the green mass of the woods. A few of the oil wells were at work, thudding in the distance. Cattle were feeding in the wet green fields. Birds, brown and blue, red-breasted and grey-breasted, twittered and hopped in tree and shrub. A ploughman in a far-off field shouted to his team. Crows flapped slowly overhead, dropping now and then a dignified, contented croak. The only other sound was the frequent and sharp crack of a rifle from deep in the centre of the woods.