“Yes, ye did that,” said the foreman tolerantly; “but ye see, thar's some folks around here that allow it warn't no accident. There's a heap of them believe that no runaway hoss ever mauled the colonel ez HE got mauled.”
“But I heard it from the colonel's own lips,” said the editor, “and HE surely ought to know.”
“He mout know and he moutn't, and if he DID know, he wouldn't tell,” said the foreman musingly, rubbing his chin with the cleaner side of his arm. “Ye didn't see him when he was picked up, did ye?”
“No,” said the editor. “Only after the doctor had attended him. Why?”
“Jake Parmlee, ez picked him up outer the ditch, says that he was half choked, and his black silk neck-handkercher was pulled tight around his throat. There was a mark on his nose ez ef some one had tried to gouge out his eye, and his left ear was chawed ez ef he'd bin down in a reg'lar rough-and-tumble clinch.”
“He told me his horse bolted, buck-jumped, threw him, and he lost consciousness,” said the editor positively. “He had no reason for lying, and a man like Starbottle, who carries a Derringer and is a dead shot, would have left his mark on somebody if he'd been attacked.”
“That's what the boys say is just the reason why he lied. He was TOOK SUDDENT, don't ye see,—he'd no show—and don't like to confess it. See? A man like HIM ain't goin' to advertise that he kin be tackled and left senseless and no one else got hurt by it! His political influence would be ruined here!”
The editor was momentarily staggered at this large truth.
“Nonsense!” he said, with a laugh. “Who would attack Colonel Starbottle in that fashion? He might have been shot on sight by some political enemy with whom he had quarreled—but not BEATEN.”
“S'pose it warn't no political enemy?” said the foreman doggedly.