“No—except with this little wildcat here in which she has done all the fighting!” laughed Goldsborough.
“Your ears are each one clot of gore!”
“I dare say, though they feel to me as if they were each one ball of fire! See here, Mutchison—much as I dislike to restrain a young lady, we shall have to confine her hands, or I shall not have an ear, or a lock of hair left on my head! Take this pocket-handkerchief and tie her hands.”
“Pity it hadn’t been done first, colonel! It would have saved your beauty from being spoiled, and mine too. Thunderation! I would as leave try to tie a catamount, with a thousand claws!” exclaimed Mutchison, as he sought to secure the hands of Elfie, who fought, scratched, and bit with so much effect that the guerrilla’s face and eyes came to great grief before he succeeded in binding her.
After that they rode on more quietly through the woods, though Elfie did not cease to use her tongue, even if she could not use her hands.
“Yes, you murderer! don’t think but what I’ll have you hanged for killing Mim, for I’m sure you have killed him!” Elfie exclaimed, for the first time bursting into tears of passionate sorrow as well as of rage.
“That little tiny fellow! What if I did? You didn’t call him a man, did you?” chuckled Mutchison.
“Yes, you monster! a thousand times more of a man than you and your master either, ever was!” sobbed Elfie.
“Why, he wasn’t bigger than one of my legs!”
“Don’t sneer at his size, you coarse brute! He had more spirit than all your cut-throat, chicken-stealing tribe put together. You huge brutes, if you have any soul at all, have it diluted with too much body to make it worth anything!” cried Elfie, with hot scorn.