“I’ll not turn any such trick,” I said. I was angry in a moment. So was he.
“You will if I tell you to.”
“I won’t; and I’ll say further that I don’t think much of this business, anyway.”
“Nor I—and that’s two against one,” declared Runnels, the tip of his thin nose beginning to glow as if new courage had hung out a banner.
Liquor had also given my uncle’s temper an edge of its own; he cuffed Runnels until that lamenting “lady’s” hat fell off. I jumped up and ran away into the fields, for I knew that Uncle Deck was merely warming up on “Squealing John”; as chief mutineer, I was ticketed for the real bout. I lurked about in the pine grove till after sunset. Then I stole back into the village with all the stealth of a criminal.
V—SHOOING AWAY A SCAPEGOAT
I RECKON it’s best for innocence to go boldly in this world. At any rate, I would have come off better that night if I had not lurked and prowled. However, I was only obeying very wise dictates of prudence; my uncle had been sufficiently savage in the harness-room when rebellion was merely in process of hatching. To meet him after Judge Kingsley had exploded the bomb—and I was sure that I would be revealed in the matter—would be like getting in the path of a Bengal tiger with snap-crackers blistering his tail.
I wasn’t at all certain what I would do after I found out that I had been exposed to my uncle’s fury; first of all, so I felt, it was essential to learn what had developed in the horse trade.