“Thank goodness I’ve got a white man’s ground under my feet!” he exclaimed; and no one had ever seen him so mad before. He seemed to be holding in for just this occasion, and he was so angry that he could scarcely[scarcely] speak plainly. “I suppose that now I can talk to you as I have a mind to.”
“Draw yourselves in line across this bridge and hold your guns in readiness to shoot,” said Mr. Sprague in a low tone to his men. “He may open fire on us before we can get under cover. Oh, yes, you can say what you please, now,” he said, in his ordinary voice. “But I wouldn’t say too much till I get behind that bend.”
“Well, I want to say this much to you,” shouted Mr. Swayne; “you have had your own way this time, but we are coming back in less than a week to clean you all out.”
“And remember this,” exclaimed Carl from his place in the wagon. “I will bear in mind the boys who drew shooting-irons on me, you see if I don’t. I’ll tear down that notice, and every other one that I can find.”
“And you, Bob Lee, I’ll remember you,” said the man with a lump under his eye. “I’ll teach you that the next man who says anything about the Confederates—well, you had better let him alone, that’s all,” he added, when he saw Bob raise his gun to his shoulder.
“If you are all ready, go on,” said Mr. Sprague.
Mr. Swayne was a long time in getting into his wagon. He would place his foot upon the hub, and then one of the men would say something insulting in regard to the men they had just left, and Mr. Swayne would take his foot down and stand there until he heard what the man had to say. He was in earnest when he said they were coming back to clean the Union men all out, and that there wouldn’t be hide nor hair of them left when they did come, and finally he got into his wagon and drove on. When he looked behind to see what had become of Mr. Sprague and his party, he saw them just disappearing around the nearest bend in the road.
“I wish I dared shoot at them,” said he.
“Well, I’ll shoot at them, and welcome,” said the man whom Bob Lee had struck, as he reached for his gun.
“Don’t do it, Jim,” expostulated Mr. Swayne.