Suddenly Wade put out his hand and laid it heavily on Pole's shoulder. “Looky' here, Baker,” he said, “if you are lying to me, I—”
“Hold on, hold on, Jeff Wade!” Pole broke in sternly. “When you use words like them don't you look serious! So fur, this has been a friendly talk, man to man, as I see it; but you begin to intimate that I'm a liar, an' I'll try my best to make you chaw the statement. You're excited, but you must watch whar yore a-walkin'.”
“Well, I want the truth, by God, I want the truth!”
“Well, you are a-gittin' it, with the measure runnin' over,” Pole said, “an' that ought to satisfy any reasonable man.”
“So you think, then, that Nelson Floyd never done any—any o' the things folks says he did—that trip to the circus at Darley, when Minnie said she was stayin' all night with the Halsey gals over the mountains—that was just report?”
“Well, I ain't here to say that, nuther,” said Pole, most diplomatically. “Nelson Floyd ain't any more'n human, Jeff. His wings hain't sprouted—at least, they ain't big enough to show through his clothes. He's like you used to be before you married an' quit the turf, only—ef I'm any judge—you was a hundred times wuss. Ef all the men concerned in this county was after you like you are after Nelson Floyd, they'd be on yore track wuss'n a pack o' yelpin' wolves.”
“Oh, hell! let up on me an' what I've done! I kin take care o' myself,” Wade snarled.
“All right, Jeff,” Pole laughed. “I was only drappin' them hints on my way to my point. Well, Minnie she come back from Atlanta, an' fer three whole days she looked to me like she missed Thad, but she got to goin' with the Thornton boys, an' then Nelson Floyd run across her track. I ain't here to make excuses fer 'im, but she was every bit as much to blame as he was. He's been around some, an' has enough sense to git in out o' the rain, an' I reckon he had his fun, or he wouldn't be a-settin' at Price's Spring waitin' to meet death at the end o' that gun o' yourn.”
Jeff Wade turned an undecided, wavering glance upon the towering mountain on his right. He drew a deep breath and seemed about to speak, but checked himself.
“But la me! what a stark, ravin' fool you was about to make o' yoreself, Jeff!” Pole went on. “You started to do this thing to-day on yore sister's account, when by doin' it you would bust up her home an' make the rest of her life miserable.”