The reproach in the Colonel's eyes fell upon Dale like a lash, and he angrily continued:
"You said you'd do it, didn't you? If I hadn't—or somebody hadn't—he'd kept on shoutin' those things, an' maybe worse, till she wouldn't have opened school next yeah! Would she? Then what would I do? I tell you, Tusk had to be kilt!"
"I was merely angry, and talking, sir," the Colonel protested, with not the same regard for truth he had formerly boasted.
"An' I was angry an' not talkin'," Dale sullenly retorted.
The silence that followed was broken by the old gentleman's brief question:
"Dead?"
"I reckon. He went down."
"I ain't got time to fool with 'im," the mountaineer looked restlessly at the open book and then back at his interrogator. "I've got to study. You go, if you think you'd ought, an' take some niggers."
The Colonel shuddered: "By God, but you're a cold one!" then hastily went out to consult the faithful Zack. But the mountaineer reseated himself at the long mahogany table, and plunged furiously into the maze of erudition.