“Why?” I asked, seeing that he was waiting for the question.
“Had a fool friend once,” observed Ab, “with one of them high-toned stock farms. He had one cussed old Sheep of some fancy breed that he paid five thousand dollars for. The boys used to call him Hi-ram.”
I made no answer, being busy with the dishes, and Ab retreated into the shrubbery. “Say,” he yelled, from a respectful distance, “be you English?”
My blood burned to be at him, but I did not wish to quarrel with the only human being for miles around, nor to lower myself to the level of my kindred of the wild, who fight it out with claw and tooth and fang. Jagg, who was sitting near me, snorted loudly with anger and the hair on the back of his neck bristled.
He came to me, and by repeated significant gestures made me understand that he wished me to remove his hat. I did so, but with difficulty.
When Ab appeared at dinner time, Jagg took no apparent notice of him. The kettle was singing cheerily and the delicious scent of the frying bacon was abroad in the landscape. “Ab,” I called, “get some more sticks and put them on the fire.”
He bent over the cheerful flame and replenished the blaze with an armful of chips which he had found in the woods. Jagg was not a part of the domestic scene and I did not know where he was, but I heard a loud imprecation, saw Ab careening madly in midair, and fancied that I saw a glimmer of white just over the shrubbery.
My quick, active mind at once inferred that I should have to add Ab’s biography to my great work: The Lives of the Bunted.
Nothing was said, and on the surface, at least, all things were as usual, but I saw the red gleam of implacable hate in the faces of my two companions, and dreaded the deadly combat which must soon take place.
For a week or more there was comparative peace, then, one morning when I opened my cabin door to admit the fresh air of dawn, I saw a pathetic sight. On my threshold, faithful to the last, was Jagg, stark and stiff and cold in death.