“He hev widened out mightily sence then, though he ain’t got no fat ter spare yit,” put in Jeb.
“An’ then, suddint,” resumed Marvin, “he jes’ stepped his foot right on the groun’. In that very minute Eph’s gun flashed. An’ I seen Jeemes standin’ thar, still sightin’. An’ then Eph, he drapped his gun, an’ held his hands afore his face, an’ yelled out, ‘Shoot, ef ye air a-goin’ ter shoot! I ain’t a-goin’ ter stan’ hyar no longer.’ An’ Jeemes, he looked ez scornful”—
“I never seen a boy’s looks with sech a cuttin’ aidge ter ’em,” interpolated Jeb.
“An’ Jeemes, he say, ‘I ain’t a-wastin’ powder ter-day. I never ’lowed ez skunks war game.’ An’ he drapped his gun.”
“Yes sir!” exclaimed Jeb, “he jes’ hed that much grit,—ter stan’ up ez a shootin’ mark fur Eph Saunders, an’ prove he warn’t afeard o’ nothin’. He did sir!”
“Why, look here, my good friends!” cried the lawyer. “That was a duel. It was a cool, premeditated affair. They met by previous appointment, and fought with deadly weapons and with witnesses. It was a duel.”
“Mebbe so,” said Jeb, indifferently and uncomprehendingly. “I call it clean grit.”
“Waal,” went on Marvin, “I run across the bredge lookin’ fur Eph’s bullet. I said, ‘Whar’d it go?’ An’ by that time Eph an’ them low down Kitwin boys war slinkin’ off. An’ sez Jeemes, ‘Don’t let ’em know it. I don’t want my mother ter hear ’bout it. She air fibble an’ gittin’ old.’ An’ thar I seen the breast o’ his shirt war slow a-spottin’ with blood. Waal, sir, that’s how kem me an’ Jeb an’ him rid over the mountings inter North Carolina, whar he hed some kinsfolks livin’ ’mongst the hills.”
“Ye see,”—Jeb again took up his testimony,—“he didn’t want the news ter git ter his mother afore he got well, ’kase he war delikit, an’ she war always a-lookin’ fur him ter die; an’ Eph never knowed Jim war shot, an’ couldn’t kerry the tale down ter Colbury. Waal, we-uns war all young an’ toler’ble bouncin’ fools, I tell ye, an’ we sorter got light on that fac’ whenst we-uns sot out ter ride with a man with a gun-shot wound—I furgits ’zac’ly whar the doctor say the bullet went in—miles an’ miles through the mountings; an’ the dark kem on an’ the rain kem down, an’ Jeemes got out’n his head. An’ this ride with you-uns air what reminded me o’ it.”
“I ain’t out of my head!” cried Harshaw, with covert meaning. “You bet your immortal soul on that!”