His anxious eyes gleamed from out their perplexed wrinkles like a ray of sunlight twinkling through a spider-web.
There was an interchange of glances between the sheriff and his deputy, and the admonished subordinate continued:
''Twar jes' the boy, eh; an' I reckon he war afeard o' Rick's shootin'-irons an' sech.'
''Twar Jer'miah,' repeated the storekeeper, his discreet eyes upon the bosom of his blue-checked homespun shirt.
'Waal, the pa'son, ez I war sayin', he called the blacksmith "Judas" fur capturing the malefactor, an' the gov'nor's reward "blood-money,"' continued the deputy, expertly electioneering, since his own tenure was on the uncertain continuance of the sheriff in office. 'An' now he's goin' round the kentry prophesyin' as 'Cajah Green ain't goin' ter be 'lected. Waal, thar war false prophets 'fore his time, an' will be agin, I'm thinkin'.'
There was a sudden clamour upon the air; a vibrant, childish voice, and then a great horse-laugh. An old crone had come out of one of the cabins and was standing by the fence, holding out to Gid Fletcher, who seemed master of ceremonies, a large white gander. The fowl's physiognomy was thrown into bold prominence by a thorough greasing of the head and neck. His wings flapped, he hissed fiercely, he dolorously squawked. A little girl was running frantically by the side of the old woman, clutching at her skirt and vociferously claiming the 'gaynder.' Hers it was, since 'Mam gin me the las' aig when the grey goose laid her ladder out, an' it war sot under the old Dominicky hen ez kem off'n her nest through settin' three weeks, like a hen will do. An' then 'twar put under old Top-knot, an' 'twar the fust aig hatched out'n old Top-knot's settin'.'
This unique pedigree, shrieked out with a shrill distinctness, mixed with the lament of the prescient bird, had a ludicrous effect. Fletcher took the gander with a guffaw, the old crone chuckled, and the young men laughed as they mounted their horses.
The blacksmith hardly knew which part he preferred to play. The element of domination in his character gave a peculiar relish to the rôle of umpire; yet with his pride in his deftness and strength it cost him a pang to forego the competition in which he felt himself an assured victor. He armed himself with a whip of many thongs, and took his stand beneath a branch of one of the trees, from which the gander was suspended by his big feet, head downward. Aghast at his disagreeable situation, his wild eyes stared about; his great wings flapped drearily; his long neck protruded with its peculiar motion, unaware of the clutch it invited. What a pity so funny a thing can suffer!
The gaping crowd at the store, on the cabin porches, on the fences, watched the competitors with wide-eyed, wide-mouthed delight. There were gallant figures amongst them, shown to advantage on young horses whose spirit was not yet quelled by the plough. They filed slowly around the prescribed space once, twice; then each made the circuit alone at a break-neck gallop. As the first horseman rode swiftly along the crest of the precipice, his head high against the blue sky, the stride of the steed covering mountain and valley, he had the miraculous effect of Prince Firouz Shah and the enchanted horse in their mysterious aërial journeys. When he passed beneath the branch whence hung the frantic, fluttering bird, the blacksmith, standing sentinel with his whip of many thongs, laid it upon the flank of the horse, and despite the wild and sudden plunge the rider rose in his stirrups and clutched the greased neck of the swaying gander. Tough old fowl! The strong ligaments resisted. The first hardly hoped to pluck the head, and after his hasty, convulsive grasp his frightened horse carried him on almost over the bluff. The slippery neck refused to yield at the second pull, and the screams of the delighted spectators mingled with the shrieks of the gander. The mountain colt, a clay-bank, with a long black tail full of cockle-burrs, bearing the third man, reared violently under the surprise of the lash. As the rider changed the balance of his weight, rising in his stirrups to tug at the gander's neck, the colt pawed the air wildly with his fore feet, fell backward, and rolled upon the ground, almost over the hapless wight. The blacksmith was fain to support himself against the tree for laughter, and the hurrahing Settlement could not remember when it had enjoyed anything so much. The man gathered himself up sheepishly, and limped off; the colt being probably a mile away, running through the woods at the height of his speed.
The gander was in a panic by this time. If ever a fowl of that gender has hysterics, that gander exhibited the disease. He hissed; he flapped his wings; he squawked; he stared; he used every limited power of expression with which nature has gifted him. He was so funny one could hardly look at him.