Jones laughed slyly as he put his hat carefully on his shaggy head and pressed the broad brims up on the sides and to a point in front. “Why, Pole,” he answered, “to tell you the truth, I am headed fer that thar spring. I'm goin' to acknowledge to you that, as long as I've lived in this world, I hain't never been on hand at a shootin'-scrape. Mighty nigh every man I know has seed oodlin's of 'em, but my luck's been agin me. I was too young to be in the war, an' about the most excitin' thing I ever attended was a chicken-fight, and so I determined to see this through. I know a big rock jest above the spring, and I'm a-goin' to git thar in plenty o' time. You let me git kivered all but my eyes, an' I'll run the resk o' gettin' hit from thar up. Whar you makin' fer, Pole?”
“Me? Oh, I'm on the way home, Mel. I seed the biggest rattlesnake run across this road jest now I ever laid eyes on. I got down to settle his hash, but I didn't have anything to hit 'im with, an' I'm done stompin' on them fellers sence Tobe Baker, my cousin, over at Hillbend, got bliffed in the knee-j'int.”
“Well, so long,” Jones laughed. “I'll hunt rattlesnakes some other time. Are you plumb shore you hain't got the jimmies ag'in, Pole? Take my advice an' don't tell anybody about seein' snakes; it sets folks to thinkin'. Why, I seed you once in broad daylight when you swore black spiders was playin' sweepstakes on yore shirt-front.”
“So long, Mel,” Pole smiled. He made a fair pretence at getting ready to mount as Jones galloped away in a cloud of dust. The rider was scarcely out of sight when a pair of fine black horses drawing a buggy came into view. The vehicle contained Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. She was a delicate, rather pretty girl of nineteen or twenty, and she nodded haughtily to Pole as her father stopped his horses.
“You are sure that thing's off, are you, Baker?” the planter said, with a genial smile.
“Oh yes, captain.” Pole had his eyes on the young lady and had taken off his hat, and stood awkwardly swinging it against the baggy knees of his rough trousers.
“Well, I'm very glad,” Duncan said. “I heard you'd told some of the crowd back at the store that it had been settled, but I didn't know whether the report was reliable or not.”
Pole's glance shifted between plain truth and Evelyn Duncan's refined face for a moment, and then he nodded. “Oh yes, it was all a mistake, captain. Reports get out, you know; and nothin' hain't as bad as gossip is after it's crawled through a hundred mouths an' over a hundred envious tongues.”
“Well, I'm glad, as I say,” the planter said, and he jerked his reins and spoke to his horses.
As he whirled away, Pole growled. “Derned ef I hain't a-makin' a regular sign-post out o' myself,” he mused, “an' lyin' to beat the Dutch. Ef that blasted fool don't hurry on purty soon I'll—but thar he is now, comin' on with a swoop. His hoss is about to run from under 'im, his dem legs is so long. Now, looky' here, Pole Baker, Esquire, hog-thief an' liar, you are up agin about the most serious proposition you ever tackled, an' ef you don't mind what you are about you'll have cold feet inside o' ten minutes by the clock. You've set in to carry this thing through or die in the attempt, an' time's precious. The fust thing is to stop the blamed whelp; you cayn't reason with a man that's flyin' through the air like he's shot out of a gun, an' Jeff Wade's a-goin' to be the devil to halt. He's got the smell o' blood, an' that works on a mad man jest like it does on a bloodhound—he's a-goin' to run some'n down. The only thing in God's world that'll stop a man in that fix is to insult 'im, an' I reckon I'll have that to do in this case.”