“I did not come here to sit down,” Foster growled angrily. “I came here to find out why you did not give us that logging contract.”
“Oh,” Scott said as though puzzled, “I understood you to say that you came to train me to come when you called.”
“I’ll do that, too, before I’m through with you,” Foster exclaimed, furiously. “Are you going to answer my question or will I have to beat it out of you?”
Scott looked him calmly in the eye a moment and smiled contemptuously. “You want to know why I did not give this contract to ‘us’? Just whom do you mean? Who is ‘us’? You forget that you are a stranger to me.”
Foster stared at him open-mouthed. Then the blood rushed to his already purple face, his neck swelled and his whole frame shook with the fury of his passion. His words were almost inarticulate. “You know me, you insolent hound. Everybody knows Foster Wait and a lot of ’em to their sorrow. Answer that question before I send you after old Jarred Morgan. I’ll teach you to insult a Wait!”
Scott knew of Foster’s furious temper and he had been doing his best to arouse it. He wanted him to fight and he knew that he would not do it except in a fit of passion. He knew his danger and he watched the man’s every move as he gave his temper one more prod.
“Talk sense, Mr. Wait, if you want an answer from me,” he sneered. “Threats do not scare me any more than they do old Jarred Morgan.”
Foster gave a roar of rage and threw forward his long rifle. He would undoubtedly have shot Scott as he had shot several other men when worked up to an uncontrollable passion, but Scott had been watching for just such a move.
He had already grasped hold of a short piece of pipe which he had leaned up against a pillar of the porch in case of emergency, and when Foster threw forward his rifle he struck the barrel with all his might. The unexpected blow knocked the weapon out of Foster’s hands, and the bullet went through the roof of the porch.
The suddenness of it all bewildered Foster for a moment and before he had fully recovered, Scott struck him a crushing blow on the jaw. The blow staggered him, but he quickly recovered his balance and threw himself upon Scott with the fury of a wild animal. He was usually a coward but now he was a crazy man, blinded by his passion, and did not realize what he was doing.