“I didn’t nuther,” Richard sneered, the red firelight revealing strange flashes in his eyes.
For some instants the visitor stood on the hearth awkwardly disrobing his sinewy hands. Finally, unheeding Lucinda’s admonitory glances toward the door, and the prayerful current from her eyes to his, he sat down near Marty. Ten minutes by the clock on the mantelpiece passed, in which time nothing was heard except the lowing of the cattle in the cow-lot and the sizzling of the coals when Richard spat. At last a portion of Wakeman’s wandering self-confidence resettled upon him, and it became him well. He crossed his legs easily, dropped his quid of tobacco into the fire, and with a determined gaze began to prod his squirming rival.
“Lookye heer,” he said, suddenly. “What did you come heer fur, anyhow?”
Goardley leaned forward and spat between his linked hands. He accomplished it with no slight effort, for the inactivity of his mouth, which was not chewing anything, had produced a hot dryness.
“I don’t know,” he managed to say. “I jest thought I’d come around.”
“Ride?”
“Yes, hoss-back.”
“Do you know whar you hitched?” Goardley hesitated and glanced helplessly at Marty, who, stern-faced, inflexible, was looking at the paper in her lap.
“I hitched under the cherry-tree out thar,” he answered, with scarcely a touch of self-confidence in his tone.
“Well, go unhitch an’ git astraddle of yore animal.”