'I'll kem thar d'rec'ly an' tromp the life out'n ye, Rick Tyler. I'll grind yer skull ter pieces with my boot-heel, like ez ef ye war a copper-head.'
'Laws-a-massy, boys, sech a quar'lin', fightin' batch ez ye be! I fairly gits gagged with my liquor a-listenin' ter ye—furgits how ter swaller,' said Groundhog Cayce, suddenly fretful.
'Leave Rick be, Amos Jeemes,' he added, in an authoritative tone. And then, with a slant of his head toward Rick Tyler, lying on the ground, 'Hold yer jaw down thar!'
And the two young men lapsed into silence.
The spring, rising among the barren rocks, chanted aloud its prescient sylvan song of the woodland ways, and the glancing beam, and the springing trout, and the dream of the drifting leaf, as true of tone and as delicately keyed to the dryadic chorus in the forest without as if the waters that knew but darkness and the cavernous sterilities were already in the liberated joys of the gorge yonder, reflecting the sky, wantoning with the wind, and swirling down the mountain side. The spirits dripped from the worm, the furnace roared, the men's feet grated upon the rocks as they now and then shifted their position.
'Waal,' said Amos at last, rising, 'I'd better be a-goin'. 'Pears like ez I hev wore out my welcome hyar.'
He stood looking at the line of light, remembering desolately Dorinda's buoyant, triumphant mood. Its embellishment of her beauty had smitten him with an afflicted sense of her withdrawal from all the prospects of his future. He had thought that he had given up hope, but he began to appreciate, when he found Rick Tyler in intimate refuge with her kindred, how sturdy an organism was that heart of his, and to realize that to reduce it to despair must needs cost many a throe.
'I hev wore out my welcome, I reckon,' he repeated dismally.
'I dunno what ails ye ter say that. Ye hev jes' got tired o' comin' hyar, I reckon,' said old man Cayce. 'Wore out yer welcome—shucks!'
'Mighty nigh wore me out,' said Pete, remembering to cough.