"Good on you, old man! He's been wanting it this long while past; but look out he don't put a knife in your ribs. Now then," said he ferociously, turning to his wife, "why don't you drive on? Here, catch hold!" and giving her the reins, he lifted his hand to strike her. But just then the old horse started up, he fell over the seat again, and lay there on a pile of sacking. I hardly thought he would get East with his money, and I was right, for I hired him to work for me soon afterward.
When I came to the Flemings' there was no one about but the old man.
"Busy!" said he, "you may bet I'm busy. I sent that black ruffian off yesterday, and I've got no one to help me. What's the matter with your head?"
When I told him, he laughed heartily, and then shook my hand.
"I'm glad you thrashed him, Tom," said he; "I'd have done it myself yesterday if I had been ten years younger. When Elsie wanted him to get some water, he growled and said all klootchmen, as he calls 'em—women, you know—were alike, Indian or white, and no good. I told him to get out. Is he badly hurt?"
"Not very," I answered.
"I hoped he was," said the old man. "It's a pity you didn't break his neck! I would as soon trust a black snake! Are you going over yonder?"
"I guess so," I answered; "I must get the place cleaned up a bit—it's like a pigsty, or what they call a hog-pen in this country,"
"Well, I guess it is," he replied; "but come over in the evening, if you like."
I thanked him and rode off, happy in one thing at least—I was near Elsie. I felt as if Harmer's suspicions about Mat were a mere chimera, and that the lad in some excitement had mistaken the dark face of some harmless Indian for that of the revengeful Malay. And as to Siwash Jim, why, I shrugged my shoulders; I did not suppose he was so murderously inclined as Nettlebury imagined. It would be hard lines on me to have two men so ill disposed toward me, through no fault of my own, as to wish to kill me.