“Thar aint?” shouted Lish, while an ominous light shone in his eyes. “An’ ye aint done nothin’ but lay thar an’ stuff yerself till our coffee an’ grub’s all gone! Git up from thar, I tell ye, an’ go out an’ ketch me a partridge!”
“I can’t,” replied Tom, who, seeing that an outbreak was not very far distant, began to be terribly alarmed. “I can’t walk a step. You have no idea how I suffer all the time.”
“’Taint nothin’ on ’arth but laziness that is the matter of ye!” said Lish as he laid down his rifle and picked up the switch. “If ye won’t move, I’ll have to move ye. Git up from thar! Git up, ye lazy wagabone, an’ git me sunthin’ to eat! Do ye reckon yer goin’ to git up?”
These words were accompanied by a shower of blows, which fell upon Tom’s head and shoulders with such force that the sound of them could be, indeed was, heard a considerable distance away.
If his life had depended upon it, poor Tom could not have maintained an upright position for half a minute. He had tried it often enough to know. Whenever he attempted it the blood rushed into his foot, causing him the most intense anguish.
He could only lie there and make feeble, but unavailing, efforts to shield his face, which seemed to be the mark at which his tormentor aimed his blows. His shrieks of agony fell upon deaf ears, the wolfer having determined to beat him until he got upon his feet.
They were both so completely engrossed—Lish in raining his blows upon his helpless victim, and Tom in trying to ward them off—and the hubbub they occasioned was so great, that they did not hear the sonorous bray which awoke the echoes of the hills, nor the noise made by rapidly advancing hoofs.
Just as Tom was about to give up in despair, and allow the wolfer to beat him to death—if he had made up his mind to do so—a large mouse-colored mule, without saddle or bridle, but carrying a rider on his back, suddenly appeared upon the scene.
The mule was coming at a furious pace directly toward the lean-to, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to run right through it; but he stopped when he reached the side of the pony, and his rider swung himself to the ground.
No sooner was he fairly landed on his feet than he dashed forward with an angry exclamation, and planted his fist so squarely and forcibly against the wolfer’s neck that he doubled him up like a piece of wet cloth, and brought the fracas to a close in an instant.