“Oh, I see—well, if you ain't ready, that alters it! No man can't accuse me of pullin' down on a feller that ain't fixed. I know you ain't a-goin' to back down after what I've said to your teeth, an' I'll set here on this step an' you go across to the hardware store an' fix yourself. Mine's a thirty-eight. I don't care what size you git. I want you to be plumb satisfied. Don't tell anybody, either. We don't want no crowd. This is our affair.” Hoag moved a step nearer to the offended man. He smiled rigidly. His voice fell into appealing, pleading gentleness.
“Looky here, Jeff, you an' me 've had differences, I know, an' thar's been plenty o' bad blood betwixt us; but as God is my judge I never had any deep ill-will ag'in' you. I've always known you was a brave man, an' I admired it in you. You are mad now, an' you are not seein' things straight. You've heard some'n or other; but it ain't true. Now, I don't want any trouble with you, an—”
“Trouble!” Warren's dark eyes flashed; his voice rang like steel striking steel. It was an odd blending of threat and laughter. “If we don't have trouble the sun won't set to-night. I'm talkin' about what you said at the post-office t'other day to a gang about me an' a certain neighbor's wife.”
“I think I can guess what you are talkin' about, an' you've got it plumb crooked, Jeff.” Hoag bent toward the man and laid a bloodless hand full of soothing intent on his shoulder. “You say you are a fair man, Jeff, an' I know you are, an' when a man like me says he's sorry and wants to fix things straight—without bloodshed—be reasonable. I didn't mean to reflect on the lady. I just said, if I remember right, that it looked like she admired you some. An' if you say so, I'll apologize to her myself. No man could ask more than that.”
The fierce dark eyes blinked; their glare subsided. There was a momentous pause.
“I wouldn't want 'er to hear a thing like that,” Warren faltered. “Too much has been said anyway, one way an' another, by meddlin' gossips, an' it would hurt her feelin's. I didn't want to fight about it, but couldn't hold in. An' if you say you didn't mean nothin' disrespectful, why, that will have to do. We'll drop it. I don't want bloodshed myself, if I kin get around it.”
“I don't want any either, Jeff,” Hoag said, still pacifically, and yet his fury, contempt for himself, and hatred for the man before him were already returning, “so we'll call it settled?”
“All right, all right,” Warren agreed; “it will have to do. When a man talks like you do nothin' more is to be said. I never yet have whipped a man that didn't want to fight. I'd as soon hit a suckin' baby.” They parted, Warren going into the Court House and Hoag to the stable for his horse. Trawley was at the front waiting for him.
“Hello,” he cried, “I see he didn't plug you full o' holes. I watched 'im follow you into the Court House, an' expected to hear a whole volley o' shots.”
“He did want to see me,” Hoag sneered, loftily. “In fact, he come while I was havin' a paper recorded an' wanted to see me. He tried to git me to admit I was slanderin' that woman, an' I gave 'im a piece o' my mind about it. Her son works for me, an' I think a lot of the boy. I wouldn't have Paul hear a thing like that for anything. He's all right an' is tryin' hard to make his way. I told Jeff if he wanted bloodshed to git up some other pretext an' I'd give 'im all he wanted. A triflin' scamp like he is can't stamp me in public as a traducer of women.”