“You little beast!” Jeff launched his horse at the traducer, but Gibson spurred aside.
“Stop now, Jeffy! Easy does it! I’ve got a gun!”
“Shut your damn head then! Gun or no gun, don’t you take that girl’s name in your mouth again, or——Hark! What’s that?”
It was a clatter far behind—a ringing of swift hoofs on hard ground.
“By George, they’re coming! Griffith will be a man yet!” said Jeff approvingly. “Come on, kid; we’ve got to burn the breeze! I suppose that talk of yours is only your damn fool idea of fun, but I don’t like it. Cut it out, now, and ride like a drunk Indian!” He laughed loud and long. “Think o’ that candle, will you?—burning away with a clear, bright, steady flame, and nobody within ten miles of it!”
They raced side by side; but Gibson, heedless of their perilous situation, or perhaps taking advantage of it, took a malicious delight in goading Jeff to madness; and he refused either to be silent or to talk about candles, notwithstanding Jeff’s preference for that topic.
“I’m not joking! I’m telling you for your own good.” Here the tormentor prudently fell back half a length and raised his voice so as to be heard above the flying feet. “Hasn’t she gone back to New York, I’d like to know, and left you to get out of it the best way you can? She could ’a’ stayed if she’d wanted to. Don’t tell me! Haven’t I seen how she bosses her mother round? No, sir! She’s willing to let you hang to save herself a little slander—or, more likely, a little talk!”
Jeff whirled his horse to his haunches, but once more Gibson was too quick for him. Gibson’s horse was naturally the nimbler of the two, even without the advantage of spurs.
“That’s a lie! She was going to tell—she was bound to tell; I made her keep silent. After I jumped out she couldn’t well say anything. That’s why I jumped. Was I going to make her a target for such vile tongues as yours—for me? Oh! You ought to be shot out of a red-hot cannon, through a barbed-wire fence, into hell! You lie, you coward, you know you lie! I’ll cram it down your throat if you’ll get off and throw that gun down!”