“Oh, yes, you be!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You been proudin' yourself around here for weeks now all on account o' that decidin' vote business. And _anybody_ might 'a' been a Decidin' Vote. A Decidin' Vote don't amount to nothin' 'longside a Centre of Population.” “Where would your derned population be if I hadn't went and saved this here country for 'em?” asks Bud Peevy. “Be?” says Zeke. “They'd be right where they be now, if you'd never been born nor heard tell on, that's where they'd be. And I'd be the centre of 'em, jist like I be now!” “And what _air_ you now?” says Bud Peevy, mighty mean and insultin'-like. “You ain't nothin' but a accident, you ain't! What I got, I fit for and I earnt. But you ain't nothin' but a happenin'!” Them seemed like mighty harsh words to Zeke, for he figgered his glory was due to him on account of the uprighteous life he always led, and so he says: “Mister, anybody that says I ain't nothin' but a happenin' is a liar.” “1 kin lick my weight in rattlesnakes,” yells Bud Peevy, “and I've done it afore this! And I tells you once again, and flings it in your face, that you ain't nothin' but a accidental happenin'!” “You're a liar, then!” says Zeke. With that Bud Peevy jerks his coat off and spits on to his hands. “Set yo'self, man,” says he; “the whirlwind's cornin'!” And he makes a rush at Zeke. Bud is a good deal taller'n Zeke, but Zeke is sort o' bricky-red and chunky like a Dutch Reformed Church, and when this here Peevy comes on to him with a jump Zeke busts him one right on to the eye. It makes an uncheerful noise like 1 heard one time when Dan Lively, the butcher acrost the street there, hit a steer in the head with a sledge hammer. Bud, he sets down sudden, and looks surprised out of the eye that hadn't went to war yet. But he must 'a' figgered it was a accident for he don't set there long. He jumps up and rushes again.