"Why didn't ye axe him," growled the kinsman of the man who had been
shot, "whar the other feller's at?"
"What other fellow?" echoed the Lexington man.
Jim Hollman's voice rose truculently, and his words drifted, as he
meant them to, across to the ears of the clansmen who stood in the yard
of Spicer South.
"Them dawgs of your'n come up Misery a-hellin'. They hain't never
turned aside, an', onless they're plumb ornery no-'count curs thet
don't know their business, they come for some reason. They seemed
mighty interested in gittin' hyar. Axe them fellers in thar who's been
hyar thet hain't hyar now? Who is ther feller thet got out afore we
come hyar."
At this veiled charge of deceit, the faces of the Souths again
blackened, and the men near the door of the house drifted in to drift
presently out again, swinging discarded Winchesters at their sides. It
seemed that, after all, the incident was not closed. The man from
Lexington, finding himself face to face with a new difficulty, turned
and argued in a low voice with the Hollman leader. But Jim Hollman,
whose eyes were fixed on Samson, refused to talk in a modulated tone,
and he shouted his reply: "I hain't got nothin' ter whisper about," he proclaimed. "Go axe 'em
who hit war thet got away from hyar."
Old Spicer South stood leaning on his fence, and his rugged
countenance stiffened. He started to speak, but Samson rose from the
stile, and said, in a composed voice: "Let me talk ter this feller, Unc' Spicer." The old man nodded, and
Samson beckoned to the owner of the dogs.
"We hain't got nothin' ter say ter them fellers with ye," he
announced, briefly. "We hain't axin' 'em no questions, an' we hain't
answerin' none. Ye done come hyar with dawgs, an' we hain't stopped ye.
We've done answered all the questions them dawgs hes axed. We done
treated you an' yore houn's plumb friendly. Es fer them other men, we
hain't got nothin' ter say ter 'em. They done come hyar because they
hoped they could git me in trouble. They done failed. Thet road belongs
ter the county. They got a license ter travel hit, but this strip right
hyar hain't ther healthiest section they kin find. I reckon ye'd better
advise 'em ter move on."
The Lexington man went back. For a minute or two, Jim Hollman sat
scowling down in indecision from his saddle. Then, he admitted to
himself that he had done all he could do without becoming the
aggressor. For the moment, he was beaten. He looked up, and from the
road one of the hounds raised its voice and gave cry. That baying
afforded an excuse for leaving, and Jim Hollman seized upon it.