"Oh, I don't know. Might let you amuse yourself if there were no one in sight. But I've got nothing against you, young man. I've lived long enough to forgive an over-grown boy's impulses."
He could not have cut me deeper; and his sleepy old eyes saw the blood and he laughed. "Got under your hide a little that time, eh? We've all got a thin place somewhere in our skin, you know. You needn't look back; the officer is right behind us."
"I wish he were not in sight," I replied.
"You don't like him, eh? Why, I always thought, he was a pretty good fellow. But, of course, I am willing to accept your judgment of him. But if you don't like him why do you wait for him to come up?"
"I am waiting for you to go on, sir," I replied. "And if you don't I will knock you off that horse."
"Very well. I see a man on ahead who is doubtless better company. I trust, though, that I shall have the pleasure of a closer association with you at some future time. Good-morning."
I waited until Parker came up. "Did you get enough of him?" he asked, laughing. "I knew you would—nearly everybody does. Under the circumstances it was an insult for him to offer to ride with you."
"And he and I will have a trouble as soon as this one is settled," I replied.
"Oh, I reckon not. I don't see why any man of sense should want to have trouble with you. Just look how they are flocking to town. Hope they'll turn out this way and vote for me at the next election for sheriff. Women, too. See them coming out of that gate?"
When we rode into the town the streets were thronged and horsemen, wagons and buggies were thick on the public square. The ginger cake and cider vender was there, with his stand near the court-house steps, and the neigh of the colt and the distressful answer of his mother, tied to the rack, echoed throughout the town. Dogs, meeting one another for the first time, decided in their knowing way that they were enemies, but suddenly became allies in a yelping chase after one of their kind that came down the street with a tin can tied to his tail.