Siler always said he had no idea the Indian was hurting the dude half so bad, but that the turn the affair had taken was so absurd and ridiculous, he would have been bound to laugh any way. His friends believed that he was simply glad to see the dude get a whipping. Possibly both these causes contributed to his hilarity.
But the conviction had fastened itself on Jaybird's mind that this man Siler, whom he had always regarded as a friend, was laughing because the dude was making him clear out. So, while the dude was performing that feat, Jaybird kept one eye on Siler and silently determined in his own mind what he would do for him when he got through with the dude.
The dude had scarcely raised a hand in resistance since this human catapult struck him, and now he lay there as limp and motionless as a dead man. Siler had laughed until he was almost exhausted, and was leaning against a sapling, still laughing. Suddenly Jaybird uttered another whoop, sprang from the dude and rushed furiously on Siler. Before the hilarious lawyer could recover from his surprise, he was down on his back, rapidly being pounded and chewed into pulp himself.
The dude dragged himself to the root of a tree, carefully placed his single eyeglass, and began, as Siler expressed it, "to hold an inquest on himself, and take an inventory of his bruises and mutilations!" Siler called to him for help. He seemed surprised, and could repress his resentment of Siler's conduct no longer. Readjusting his eyeglass, and taking a closer look at Jaybird and Siler, he exclaimed in a tone of mingled revenge and satisfaction:
"Ah, by Jove! You're calling for help yourself now, are you? You played the deuce helping me you did, by Jove! I hope he'll beat you to death and scalp you, and if it were not for the law I'd help him do it; I would, by Jove!"
Jaybird relaxed no effort until Siler was as badly whipped as the dude. Then rising and deliberately spitting on his bait afresh he resumed his seat on the rock, and again remarked in the same half deprecating tone, though with rather an ominous shake of his head: "Yes, me no git out. Me heap like it, this place. Me heap ketch him, fish."
None of their bones being broken, Siler and the dude were able to get back to Charleston. The whole town gathered in to look at them, and the affair provoked many witty comments. The doctor said he could patch up their wounds well enough for all practical purposes, but he shook his head discouragingly when asked if they would ever be pretty any more.
Mr. Jaybird came out without a scratch, and Siler said the last they saw of him he was sitting on the rock gazing at the cork on his line, precisely as he was when they found him.
It is certainly refreshing to read of one Indian who had rights white men were bound to respect, and who knew so well how to maintain them. "May his tribe increase."
X. PROOF THAT THE INDIAN POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IS INCREASING.