"I hain't come over to interfere in nobody's business, Mr. Peakslow. But I happen to know this yer young man; and I know this yer hoss. At his request, I've come over to say so. I could pick out that animal, and sw'ar to him, among ten thousan'."
"What can you swear to?" Peakslow demanded, poising a harness.
"I can sw'ar this is the hoss the young man druv the day he come over to find my section corner."
"That all?"
"Isn't that enough?" said Jack.
"No!" said Peakslow, and threw the rattling harness upon Snowfoot's back. "It don't prove the hoss belonged to you, if ye did drive him. And, even though he did belong to you, it don't prove but what ye sold him arterward, and then pretended he was stole, to cheat some honest man out of his prop'ty. Hurry up, boy! buckle them hames." And he went to throw on the other harness.
Jack stepped in Zeph's way. "This is my horse, and I've a word to say about buckling those hames."
"Ye mean to hender my work?" roared Peakslow, turning upon him. "Ye mean to git me mad?"
Jack had before been hardly able to speak, for his rising wrath and beating heart; but he was now getting control of himself.
"I don't see the need of anybody's getting mad, Mr. Peakslow. There's a right and a wrong in this case; and if we both want the right, we shall agree."