breathlessly.
"YOU might," said Jim, with deep scorn; "that ain't MY style. I just
laid low till we kem to a steep pitched hill, and goin' down when the
hoss was, so to speak, kinder BELOW me, I just turned a hand spring, so,
and that landed me onter his back again."
This action, though vividly illustrated by Jim's throwing his hands down
like feet beneath him, and indicating the parabola of a spring in
the air, proving altogether too much for Clarence's mind to grasp, he
timidly turned to a less difficult detail.
"What made the horse bolt first, Mr. Hooker?"
"Smelt Injins!" said Jim, carelessly expectorating tobacco juice in
a curving jet from the side of his mouth--a singularly fascinating
accomplishment, peculiarly his own, "'n' likely YOUR Injins."
"But," argued Clarence hesitatingly, "you said it was a week
before--and--"
"Er Mexican plug kin smell Injins fifty, yes, a hundred miles away,"
said Jim, with scornful deliberation; "'n' if Judge Peyton had took my
advice, and hadn't been so mighty feared about the character of his hoss
gettin' out he'd hev played roots on them Injins afore they tetched ye.
But," he added, with gloomy dejection, "there ain't no sand in this yer
crowd, thar ain't no vim, thar ain't nothin'; and thar kan't be ez long
ez thar's women and babies, and women and baby fixin's, mixed up with
it. I'd hev cut the whole blamed gang ef it weren't for one or two
things," he added darkly.
Clarence, impressed by Jim's mysterious manner, for the moment forgot
his contemptuous allusion to Mr. Peyton, and the evident implication of
Susy and himself, and asked hurriedly, "What things?"
Jim, as if forgetful of the boy's presence in his fitful mood,
abstractedly half drew a glittering bowie knife from his bootleg,
and then slowly put it back again. "Thar's one or two old scores," he
continued, in a low voice, although no one was in hearing distance of
them, "one or two private accounts," he went on tragically, averting
his eyes as if watched by some one, "thet hev to be wiped out with blood
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