Jim Harley groaned. "Davy, you are all wrong," he said gloomily. "Hang it all, man, don't be a fool! Don't go and make things worse for me. I don't know just how Nell feels for you, but I like you first-rate—pretty near as well as any young fellow I've ever met. But—but it's for your own good, Davy. It's about that card going to you, don't you see? That sounds crazy—but I'm not crazy."
"The card? Dang the card!" returned David. "What d'ye take me for, Jim Harley, to try to scare me with such fool talk as that? You acted darn well to-night, I must say; but I guess I see your game. You've invented some sort of fairy story to try to scare me away from Nell. And so you marked that card. Red crosses on a card! D'ye take me for a darn, ignorant Injun or half-breed? Oh, you can't fool me! You want to catch that hee-haw Englishman for Nell, I guess."
Harley grabbed the younger man by the shoulder with fingers like the jaws of a fox trap for strength. "You blasted young idiot!" he cried, his voice trembling with anger. "D'ye think I'd take the trouble to monkey with cards, and all that sort of tommyrot, if I wanted to scare you away from my sister? No, David Marsh, I'd just tell you to keep clear—and if you didn't I'd knock the stuffin' out of you. I guess you know me well enough to believe that."
"I don't know what to believe," returned David sulkily, "except that you're actin' more like a darn, crazy half-breed than a white man, to-night. Let go my shoulder, anyhow, or maybe you'll learn that two can play at that game."
Jim loosed his grip, and let his arm fall to his side. For a full minute they faced each other in silence in the chill half dark of the October night, there on the desolate backwoods road. David Marsh broke the silence.
"I don't want to fight with you, Jim," he said, "but—but I must say this talk of yours about that confounded card, and the way you are actin' to-night, and—and what you just said about Nell—makes me mad as a bobcat. If you can tell me what it is you're drivin' at, for Heaven's sake tell me quick! I don't want to think you've gone nutty, Jim, and no more do I want to think—to think——"
"What?" asked Harley sharply.
"That you're a liar."
"If you think that, you'd better keep it to yourself!"
"Well, then, I don't think it. But, jumpin' Moses, I must think something!"