“Do? Do? I believe I’d scratch his eyes out; I’d hate him so, for being so cruel!” was the fiery, unexpected reply.
“Do tell! Would ye now, really? Mebbe it’s jist as well fer him that ye don’t know the feller that did it then,” remarked Raulsbury, although he gave a slight hitch to the stool upon which he was sitting as he said it, thus widening the space between them.
“Well I believe I would, for I despise a coward, and only a coward could do such a thing.”
“Huh,” was the response to this statement. Then silence for a moment was broken by the man who asked:
“Wal, why don’t ye go along an’ see if the cat’s kilt. It aint here.”
“No, I know that, but I have found something more important to ’tend to, and that’s why I came up here, and it’s something you ought to know about too: Old Baltie has tumbled down the bank at the place in the pasture where the fence is broken, and is in the ditch. I don’t know how long he’s been there, but he’s all wet, and muddy and shivery and he can’t get up. I came up to tell you, so’s you could get a man to help you and go right down and get him out. I tried, but I wasn’t strong enough, but he’ll die if you don’t go quick.”
Jean’s eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed from excitement as she described Baltie’s plight, and paused only because breath failed her.
“Wal, ’spose he does; what then? What good is he to anybody? He’s most twenty-five year old an’ clear played-out. He’d better die; it’s the best thing could happen.”
The shifty eyes had not rested upon the child while the man was speaking, but some powerful magnetism drew and held them to her deep blazing ones as the last word fell from his lips. He tried to withdraw them, ejected a mouthful of tobacco juice at one particular spot which from appearances had been so favored many times before, drew his hand across his mouth and then gave a self-conscious, snickering laugh.
“I don’t believe you understood what I said, did you?” asked Jean quietly. “I’m sure you didn’t.”