This was too violent to last long. Everybody and everything had to stop from sheer exhaustion. But when the stop came Mrs. Bolster was sitting on the prostrate form of Jeff Hackberry. The others were disentangling themselves from one another, the children and the dogs, and apparently trying to get themselves into relation with the points of the compass and understand what had been happening. "Have yo' had enough, Jeff Hackberry," inquired Mrs. Bolster, "or will yo' obleege me to gouge yer other eye out afore yo' come to yer senses?" "Le' me up, 'Frony," pleaded the man, "an' then we kin talk this thing over." CHAPTER XV. SHORTY NEARLY GOT MARRIED BREAKING UP A BAD REBEL NEST IS NO PICNIC. WHEN physical exhaustion called a halt in the fracas, Mrs. Bolster was seated on Jeff Hackberry's breast with her sinewy hands clutching his long hair, and her thumb, with a cruel, long nail, pressing the ball of his one good eye. Shorty was holding down one of the guerrillas who had tried to climb on his back when he was grappling with Hackberry. Si had knocked one guerrilla senseless with his gun-barrel, and now came to a breathless standstill in a struggle with another for the possession of his gun. The children and dogs had broken up into several smaller stormcenters, in each of which a vicious fight was going on. In some it was dog and dog; in some child and child, and in others dogs and children mixed. Then they all halted to observe the outcome of the discussion between Mrs. Bolster and Jeff Hackberry. "Holler 'nuff, Jeff, or out goes yer last light," commanded Mrs. Bolster, emphasizing her words by rising a little, and then settling down on Jeff's breast with a force that drove near every spoonful of breath out of him. "'Frony, le' me up," he begged in gasps.{206} "Mrs. Bolster," she reminded him, with another jounce upon his chest. "Mrs. Bolster, le' me up. I'd 'a' got away with that 'ere Yank ef ye' hedn't tripped me with them long legs o' your'n." "I'm right smart on the trip, aint I," she grinned. "I never seed a man yit that I couldn't throw in any sort of a rastle." "Le' me up, Mrs. Bolster, an le's begin over agin, an' yo' keep out," begged Hackberry. "Not much I won't. I ain't that kind of a chicken," she asserted with another jounce. "When I down a man I down him fer good, an' he never gits up agin 'till he caves entirely. If I let yo' up, will yo' swar to quite down peaceable as a lamb, an' make the rest do the same?" "Never," asserted Hackberry. "I'm ergwine to have it out with that Yank." "No you haint," she replied with a still more emphatic jounce that made Hackberry use all the breath left him to groan. "I'll quit," he said, with his next instalment of atmosphere. "Will yo' agree t' let me marry this Yank, an' t' give me away as my oldest friend, nearest o' kin, an' best man?" she inquired, rising sufficiently to let him take in a full breath and give a free, unforced answer.