“Complain on you?” Parker demanded. “Do you think I owe myself a grudge for coming back to life?”
“I should like to ask ye a fair question,” said the old man.
“I'll answer any questions.”
“Be ye a game-warden?”
“No, sir, I am not.”
The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighed with relief.
“When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden, sure.”
“Look here,” Parker demanded, with asperity, “did you sit there and blaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?”
“Land bless ye, no!” cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity there was no doubting. “I never harmed any one in all my life. But I was feelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I was out this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hard to keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kitties starve—no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deer when I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would have called a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. What he was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of course I fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bob out any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when I see what I see—a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head all tied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me a start! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, and struck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now I can tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' to have ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears.”
He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans from Parker.