"You're on, and that's enough; so don't open your mouth even in here. If you do, I'll back out. You get that, too, don't you? Now listen: if Jess comes, just tell him you don't know anything about anything; that you've never left the library. I'll fix the Colonel and Zack."
But Dale was scarcely listening. He had begun to cavort about the room in a semi-barbarous dance, clapping his hands and making a purring sort of growl in his throat. A chair fell over; then another.
"Chop that crazy stuff," Brent commanded. "Want to wake the house?"
The big mountaineer looked rather sheepish as he picked up one of the chairs and sat down in it.
"I reckon I was so tickled to get off from the law," he mildly explained.
"I thought you might be mourning over the fate of whoever takes your place," the engineer murmured, with a sarcasm entirely lost on his listener. "Hell, Dale," he now let his feeling explode. "I've seen lots of fellows from the mountains, but any one of 'em would lose a hand before letting another man take his medicine! You've got to let me do it, you understand!—but I do reserve this opportunity of saying you're damned unappreciative."
"Do you reckon I'm lettin' you do it for me?" he turned savagely. "Do you think it's me—jest me? Then you're a-way off!"
"Well, I supposed it had some little to do with you," Brent suggested, "and—and Miss Jane."
"It hain't!" He was in a fury again, and dropped back into the old dialect "I hain't thinkin' of Miss Jane, nor nuthin'—'cept jest the place Ruth said I'd git ter fill, the man I'll make 'mongst the big men of the world! I'm the only one on airth as kin be as big as that, hain't I? Yeou hain't amountin' ter nuthin', air ye? Why shouldn't ye take my place afore the law? Hain't hit Natur's way fer the puny ter go down afore the strong?"
The engineer's eyes opened at the curious sensation this gave him; at the utter astonishment of listening. Then he softly began to laugh.