He clapped his hat on his head and rushed into the barn. The men flocked together, the word having passed that Hime Look had at last arrived to claim his own.
For a little space there was utter silence in the barn—-Imogene evidently listening in an attempt to determine whether this new arrival were friend or foe. Then there sounded joyful trumpetings as the exhausted and frightened animal recognised her master. The men could hear Hiram’s voice soothing her, and after a time he appeared at the tie-up door.
“I’ve got another time and place,” he said, addressing them as they came crowding up to him, “for tellin’ you all what I think of a parsul of men that will chase a poor elephant nearly to death. I ain’t goin’ to tell you now. I’ve been runnin’ too long. I ain’t got breath enough. When I start in to tell you I shall need a lot of it.”
“Well, we got your brother Phin’s word to come after her,” said one of the bystanders, sulkily. “There ain’t any of us got any partic’lar relish for an el’phunt bee, but we come ’cause he asked us to.”
“You may be good barn-raisers,” returned the showman angrily, “but what you snoozers don’t know about elephants would make up the most that’s so about ’em.”
Several women came to the door of the house and one of the men called to them:
“Tell Mis’ Snell that the man that owns the animile has come to git her. There ain’t no more danger.”
The mournings within ceased promptly and a plump and fair matron appeared among the women on the door-stoop.
“What have you got to say for yourself, lettin’ loose such critters to ruin and destroy?” she demanded, with the ready and hot anger that succeeds fright.
Hiram, still framed in the tie-up door, took off his hat gallantly.