As he stood there a rather tempestuous arrival broke the tenseness of the situation. From the mouth of a woods road leading into the tangled mat of forest at the foot of Tumbledick came a little white stallion drawing a muddy gig.
Under the seat swung a battered tin pail in which smouldered dry fungi, giving off a trail of smoke behind—the smudge pail designed to rout the black-flies of summer and the “minges” of the later season.
An old man drove—an old man, whose long white hair fluttered from under a tall, pointed, visorless wool cap with a knitted knob on its apex. Whiskers, parted by his onrush, streamed past his ears.
He pulled up so suddenly in front of Ide’s store that his little stallion skated along in the dust.
“Hullo,” he chirped, cocking his head to peer, “Cole MacLeod down!”
He whirled, leaped off the back of the seat, and ran nimbly to the prostrate figure.
“Broken!” he jerked, fumbling the arm. “No—no! Out of joint!”
“Let the man alone,” commanded Wade. “He’ll need proper attendance.”
“Proper attendance!” shrilled the little old man, with snapping eyes. “Proper attendance! And I guess that you haven’t travelled much that you don’t know me. Here, two of you, come and sit on this man! I’ll have him right in a jiffy. Don’t know me, eh?” He again turned a scornful gaze on the time-keeper. “Prophet Eli, the natural bone-setter, mediator between the higher forces and man, disease eradicator, the ‘charming man’—I guess this is your first time out-doors! Here, two of you come and hold Cole MacLeod!”
When Wade, knitting his brows, manifested further symptoms of interference, Rodburd Ide took him by the arm and led him aside.