“My God, he's knocked him down! My God, he's knocked him down!” muttered the amazed girl. “You got him down!” she cried. “Jump on him an' stomp him!” He turned one startled look toward her and—it is incredible—the look even at that moment was shy; but he stood still, for Ira had picked up the ethics as well as the skill of the art, of which nothing was known in Happy Valley or elsewhere in the hills. So he stood still, his hands open, and waited. For a while Jay did not move, and his eyes, when they did open, looked dazed. He rose slowly, and as things came back to him his face became suddenly distorted. Nothing alive could humiliate him that way and still live; he meant to kill now.
“Look out!” screamed the girl. Jay rushed for the gun and Ira darted after him; but there was a quicker flash from the bushes, and Jay found his own gun pointed at his own breast and behind it Allaphair's black eyes searing him.
“Huh!” she grunted contemptuously, and the silence was absolute while she broke the pistol, emptied the cartridges into her hand, and threw them far over into the bushes.
“Less go on home, Iry,” she said, and a few steps away she turned and tossed the gun at Jay's feet. He stooped, picked it up, and, twirling it in his hand, looked foolishly after them. Presently he grinned, for at bottom Jay was a man. And two hours later, amid much wonder and many guffaws, he was telling the tale:
“The damned leetle spindle-shank licked me—licked me! An' I'll back him agin anybody in Happy Valley or anywhar else—ef you leave out bitin', gougin', and wrasslin'.”
“Did ye lose yo' gal, too?” asked Pleasant Trouble.
“Huh!” said Jay, “I reckon not—she knows her boss.”
The two walked home slowly and in silence—Ira in front and Allaphair, as does the woman in the hills, following close behind, in a spirit quite foreign to her hitherto. The little school-teacher had turned shy again and said never a word, but, as he opened the gate to let her pass through, she saw the old, old telltale look in his sombre eyes. Her mother was crooning in the porch.
“No ploughin' termorrer, mammy. Me an' Iry want the ole nag to go down to the Couht House in the mornin'. Iry's axed me to marry him.”