“Dod rot your skin!” exclaimed Sneak, getting up and seizing Joe by the collar.
“Hang it, it wasn’t me! it was the snake!” said Joe, extricating his neck from his companion’s grasp.
“What’d you hit the sarpent for?”
“Why, I wanted to kill him.”
“Then why didn’t you help me to get it away from my neck?”
“You didn’t ask me,” said Joe, with something like ingenuousness, though with a most provoking application.
“I couldn’t speak! The tarnation thing was squeezing my neck so tight I couldn’t say a word. But I looked at you, and you might ’ave understood me. Never mind, you’ll git a snake hold of you some of these days.”
“I’ll keep a sharp look out after this,” said Joe. “But Sneak, I’ll swear now you were not born to be hung.”
“You be dod rot!” replied Sneak, leaping on the steed, and turning towards the river.
“I would have cut him off myself, Sneak,” said Joe, musing on the odd affair as they rode briskly along, “if I hadn’t been afraid of cutting your throat. I knew you wasn’t born to be hung.”