He reeled with weakness as he started toward his horse. I helped him into the saddle.
"I guess I'm not as bad as I talk," he remarked.
If it were so he must have revised his view of that distinction which he had been lying to achieve. It was a curious type of vanity quite new to me then.
Young Mr. Latour fell behind me as we rode on. The silence was broken presently by "Mr. Purvis," who said:
"You can hit like the hind leg of a horse. I never sees more speed an' gristle in a feller o' your age."
"Nobody could swing the scythe and the ax as much as I have without getting some gristle, and the schoolmaster taught me how to use it," I answered. "But there's one thing that no man ought to be conceited about."
"What's that?"
"His own gristle. I remember Mr. Hacket told me once that the worst kind of a fool was the man who was conceited over his fighting power and liked to talk about it. If I ever get that way I hope that I shall have it licked out of me."
"I never git conceited—not that I ain't some reason to be," said Mr. Purvis with a highly serious countenance. He seemed to have been blind to that disparity between his acts and sayings which had distinguished him in Lickitysplit.
I turned my head away to hide my smiles and we rode on in silence.