Old Welborne himself was on the lawn inspecting his beehives, near the front gate, when his nephew entered, and he turned toward him, staring curiously.
"Why, what's the matter?" the old man asked. "You look like you've been run over by a wagon, or kicked by an army mule. Great heavens, man!" Welborne put out his hand as if to touch the purple and swollen spot above Bradley's eye, but with a surly oath the young man drew back.
"Same mule, I reckon, that had hold of your windpipe in your office the other day when you squealed like a stuck pig under the table."
"Huh!" Welborne grunted. "You was in the other room and didn't show yourself when a man less 'n half my age and as strong as an ox was—was—"
"T'wasn't my row, and this ain't yours," Hank growled. "I'll tell you that now, and be done with it. I won't take up any fight of yours over your close-fisted, hold-up deals, but I'll see mine through, and don't you forget it."
"You'd better go in the house and put some medicine on your face," the old man advised, "and sleep off that drunk! I smelt you before you opened the gate. I knew when you was kicked out of Alf Henley's store that day that you'd never let it rest till you had another row. You are like your daddy was, always looking for trouble, and, somehow, always finding plenty of it, and doing no particular harm to anybody else. He was always going to kill somebody, but never got to it."
"Listen to me," Bradley snarled; "if I don't kill that dirty whelp in twenty-four hours from now, I leave home for good and all."
"Say, look here," Welborne said, with a change of tone. "I'm not saying this for Alf Henley's sake, for I hate him; he is the only man in this county that ever tricked me out of my rights, and I'll get even with 'im, sooner or later, but I'm thinking now about you. You may be foolhardy enough to try some slip-up game on him. I'm not afraid you'll meet him like a man, for, if it had been in you, you'd have done it before this, but you may think you can do your job in the dark, so listen to me, Hank. You may think you can shoot him from behind, but I tell you if you do you'll swing for it. I've got a longer head than you have, because I've kept it clear, and hate of a man never will get my neck in the loop. Don't you know—can't you see that if anything harmed that fellow now, after this whipping he's given you, that suspicion would be directed to you. He's popular—men on all sides like him—and a jury would not leave their seats to convict you. You'd hang, I tell you, hang till you are dead, dead, dead!"
"I'd rather hang, by God," Bradley growled, "than go through with what I'm going through now. Don't talk to me. Go on with your flea-skinning, and let me alone. I know what I'm about!"
"You don't, for you are too befuddled with liquor to know," retorted the calm old man. "I can remind you of a thing that maybe you ought to recall. There was a white man lynched for a certain offence two months ago. It was done by a mob of eight or ten young devils on a drunken rampage. The authorities was disposed to drop it, because it was believed the man was guilty, but now it is leaking out that he was the wrong party. His friends are working as quiet as moles under ground. They are getting names and stacks of evidence. A man I've done a favor for come and told me to warn you. I didn't think it was worth while, but I do now, because if you fire on Alf Henley from the dark you'll be arrested, and both charges will be saddled on you."