"'That's pow'ful foolish talk, little gyurl,' says I. 'You hain't got no right to 'cuse me o' sech a thing, atter I resked my life a-tryin' to git him out. It makes me feel plum' bad,' I says.
"But she stuck to it 'at I was the cause o' yore death, and all the argyfyin' I could do didn't change her notions a dang bit. And fin'ly I tells her this here:
"'Have it yore way, like wimmenfolks allus does,' I says. 'You can shoot me ef ye want to. I promise ye I won't raise a hand to keep ye from it,' I was jest a-bluffin', ye onderstand.
"'The only reason I hain't already shot ye,' Tot says, 'is 'at I'm afeard blood on my soul, even the blood of a rattlesnake like you, might keep me from a-goin' to Little Buck when I die. Even the blood of a snake is red,' says she.
"And I won't never fo'git how she looked when she told me that. Ef it hadn't ha' been fo' my hate fo' you, Little Buck Wolfe, I'd ha' quit right thar, shorely.
"Well, I laid down on the floor afore the fire, and soon drapped off to sleep. When I woke up, daylight was a-breakin'. Tot she was still a-settin' thar a-holdin' yore wet clo'es to her bosom. Her breath it was a-comin' wheezy and quick, and she had a scratchy sawt o' cough; her eyes they was as bright as coals o' fire, and her face was a-burnin' wi' fever.
"You contemptible devil!" cried Wolfe, every nerve in his body at taut as a violin string.
"Keerful now!" said Mayfield, his finger feeling for the trigger. "You hain't in any p'sition to be a-callin' me ugly names."
Wolfe quieted himself by a supreme effort. "Tell the rest," he urged.