“Another thing about Hime, he’s a durn liar,” he went on mumbling. “He’s been telling me right along that his el’phunt is so much in love with him that she’d make a kick-up if he went away and left her. She ain’t makin’ no great stir near as I can see.”
He peered in through the big door at the rear of the barn.
Imogene had evidently been roused from her ordinary contemplative and calm mood by the routing out of the horses and their hasty departure. She stood now, twitching her ears impatiently and listening with an occasional hollow grunt of distrust. She peered at the four empty stalls with uneasiness in her little eyes and surveyed the four horses that still remained, with something like reassurance. Then she listened some more. It was evident, even to so obtuse an observer as Avery, that she was momentarily expecting the showman to come back for the other horses, and so long as they remained she considered them proof that she was not abandoned.
Avery decided that this was so, muttering his convictions to himself as he stood and watched her.
“I’m a blame good mind to try her,” he said. “I don’t believe she gives a tophet for him, any more’n anyone else in the world does. I can prove him out a liar along with the rest, and I’ll tell the folks so. I’ll run him into the ground! You watch me! There’s folks that think as how they can set on Sam Av’ry, but I’ll show ’em that they can’t—not, and keep their reppytations. I’m only a poor cripple and I can’t fight the way some folks do, but I’ve got a tongue in my head, and as soon as I’ve proved some things you jest watch me.”
Thus soliloquising, he led the four horses, one by one, out of the barn through the rear door, knotted their halters around their necks and sent them down into the field with a slap on the flank. They frolicked away, glad of a run in the open.
When the last one went out of the barn the elephant said good-bye with a melancholy “roomp.” She surged once more at her chains and the sill beams creaked. Then she settled back and eyed Avery hopefully when he came close to her.
“He’s allus told me you was more’n half human,” said Avery, addressing her. “It’s prob’ly more of his lies. I’ve heard him talkin’ to you and he said you could understand human language. Another lie prob’ly. But if you can understand, then take this and chaw on it a spell; your man has run away and them’s his horses gone a-chasin’ after him, as you can see for yourself. He ain’t never comin’ back any more. He’s robbed four banks and killed three men and you ought to be ashamed of him. They’re goin’ to build a treadle for you and make you run a thrash-in’ machine and earn your livin’. There! If you can understand human talk there’s something that will int’rest you for a minit or two.”
He stood back and gazed at her triumphantly.
The animal had been lifting her feet uneasily for some moments. Now she gazed out through the door where the horses had disappeared and moaned pitifully. With the sagacity of a veteran she seemed to sniff the fact that her master was not on the premises. To assure herself she raised her trunk and began to trumpet the call that he had always answered. After each echoing roar she hearkened. No reply came, and each succeeding appeal was more insistent and more frantic.