"Several times Tusk has threatened to kill me if I persisted in building the road across his patch of land. He stopped me one night on the pike and laid hold of my bridle rein, and I had to get down and punch his head. Why shouldn't he have tried to fix me early this morning when I might have been up in that country?--and why shouldn't I have shot him in self-defense?" "I reckon you could," the mountaineer doggedly answered. "Well, prod up your brains, man, or I'll begin to doubt if you're as scintillating us everybody says! Don't you see what has to be done if the sheriff gets wind of the thing and comes here? If I can probably get off, and you'll probably be hanged--what's the answer?" "You don't mean--" Dale swung about, resurrected hope lighting his face; but Brent held up a warning hand. "You're on, and that's enough; so don't open your mouth even in here. If you do, I'll back out. You get that, too, don't you? Now listen: if Jess comes, just tell him you don't know anything about anything; that you've never left the library. I'll fix the Colonel and Zack." But Dale was scarcely listening. He had begun to cavort about the room in a semi-barbarous dance, clapping his hands and making a purring sort of growl in his throat. A chair fell over; then another. "Chop that crazy stuff," Brent commanded. "Want to wake the house?" The big mountaineer looked rather sheepish as he picked up one of the chairs and sat down in it. "I reckon I was so tickled to get off from the law," he mildly explained. "I thought you might be mourning over the fate of whoever takes your place," the engineer murmured, with a sarcasm entirely lost on his listener. "Hell, Dale," he now let his feeling explode. "I've seen lots of fellows from the mountains, but any one of 'em would lose a hand before letting another man take his medicine! You've got to let me do it, you understand!--but I do reserve this opportunity of saying you're damned unappreciative." "Do you reckon I'm lettin' you do it for me?" he turned savagely. "Do you think it's me--jest me? Then you're a-_way_ off!" "Well, I supposed it had some little to do with you," Brent suggested, "and--and Miss Jane." "It hain't!" He was in a fury again, and dropped back into the old dialect "I hain't thinkin' of Miss Jane, nor nuthin'--'cept jest the place Ruth said I'd git ter fill, the man I'll make 'mongst the big men of the world! I'm the only one on airth as kin be as big as that, hain't I? Yeou hain't amountin' ter nuthin', air ye? Why shouldn't ye take my place afore the law? Hain't hit Natur's way fer the puny ter go down afore the strong?" The engineer's eyes opened at the curious sensation this gave him; at the utter astonishment of listening. Then he softly began to laugh.