A Fortnight of Folly. Maurice Thompson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ him as if about to execute him. The latter did not quail, but grew angrier instead.

      “You ought to have better sense than to interfere with my sport in such a way! Who are you, anyway?” he cried in a hot, fierce tone.

      The mountaineer stood silent for a moment, as if collecting words enough for what he felt like saying, then:

      “See yer,” he drawled, rather musically, “ef I take ye by the scruff o’ yer neck an’ the heel o’ yer stockin’ an’ jest chuck ye inter thet puddle, ye’ll begin to surmise who I air, ye saucy little duck-legged minny-catcher, you!”

      Dufour, remembering his long training years ago at the Gentlemen’s Glove-Club, squared himself with fists in position, having flung aside his tackle. In his righteous rage he forgot that his adversary was not only his superior in stature but also heavily armed.

      “Well, thet’ ther’ do beat me!” said the mountaineer, with an incredulous ring in his voice. “The very idee! W’y ye little aggervatin’ banty rooster, a puttin’ up yer props at me! W’y I’ll jest eternally and everlastin’ly wring yer neck an’ swob the face o’ nature wi’ ye!”

      What followed was about as indescribable as a whirlwind in dry grass. The two men appeared to coalesce for a single wild, whirling, resounding instant, and then the mountaineer went over headlong into the middle of the pool with a great plash and disappeared. Dufour, in a truly gladiatorial attitude, gazed fiercely at the large dimple in which his antagonist was buried for the instant, but out of which he presently projected himself with great promptness, then, as a new thought came to him, he seized the fallen gun of the mountaineer, cocked it and leveled it upon its owner. There was a peculiar meaning in his words as he stormed out:

      “Lie down! down with you, or I blow a hole clean through you instantly!”

      Promptly enough the mountaineer lay down until the water rippled around his chin and floated his flaxen beard. Some moments of peculiar silence followed, broken only by the lapsing gurgle and murmur of the brook.

      Dufour, with arms as steady as iron bars, kept the heavy gun bearing on the gasping face of the unwilling bather, whilst at the same time he was dangerously fingering the trigger. The stout, short figure really had a muscular and doughty air and the heavy face certainly looked warlike.

      “Stranger, a seein’ ’at ye’ve got the drap onto me, ’spose we swear off an’ make up friends?” The man in the water said this at length, in the tone of one presenting a suggestion of doubtful propriety.

      “Don’t hardly think you’ve cooled off sufficiently, do you?” responded Dufour.

      “This here’s spring warter, ye must ’member,” offered the mountaineer.

      The gun was beginning to tire Dufour’s arms.

      “Well, do you knock under?” he inquired, still carelessly fumbling the trigger.

      “Great mind ter say yes,” was the shivering response.

      “Oh, take your time to consider, I’m in no hurry,” said Dufour.

      If the man in the water could have known how the supple but of late untrained arms of the man on shore were aching, the outcome might have been different; but the bath was horribly cold and the gun’s muzzle kept its bearing right on the bather’s eye.

      “I give in, ye’ve got me, stranger,” he at last exclaimed.

      Dufour was mightily relieved as he put down the gun and watched his dripping and shivering antagonist wade out of the cold pool. The men looked at each other curiously.

      “Ye’re the dog gone’dest man ’at ever I see,” remarked the mountaineer; “who air ye, anyhow?”

      “Oh, I’m a pretty good fellow, if you take me on the right tack,” said Dufour.

      The other hesitated a moment, and then inquired:

      “Air ye one o’ them people up at the tavern on the mounting?”

      “Yes.”

      “A boardin’ there?”

      “Yes.”

      “For all summer?”

      “Possibly.”

      Again there was a silence, during which the water trickled off the mountaineer’s clothes and ran over the little stones at his feet.

      “Goin’ ter make fun o’ me when ye git up thar?” the catechism was at length resumed. Dufour laughed.

      “I could tell a pretty good thing on you,” he answered, taking a sweeping observation of the stalwart fellow’s appearance as he stood there with his loose jeans trousers and blue cotton shirt clinging to his shivering limbs.

      “See yer, now,” said the latter, in a wheedling tone, and wringing his light, thin beard with one sinewy dark hand, “see yer, now, I’d like for ye not ter do thet, strenger.”

      “Why?”

      “Well,” said the mountaineer, after some picturesque hesitation and faltering, “ ’cause I hev a ’quaintance o’ mine up ther’ at thet tavern.”

      “Indeed, have you? Who is it?”

      “Mebbe ye mought be erquainted with Miss Sarah Anna Crabb?”

      “No.”

      “Well, she’s up ther’, she stayed all night at our house las’ night an’ went on up ther’ this mornin’; she’s a literary woman an’ purty, an’ smart, an’ a mighty much of a talker.”

      “Ugh!”

      “Jest tell her ’at ye met me down yer, an’ ’at I’m tol’ble well; but don’t say nothin’ ’bout this ’ere duckin’ ’at ye gi’ me, will ye?”

      “Oh, of course, that’s all right,” Dufour hastened to say, feeling an indescribable thrill of sympathy for the man.

      “Yer’s my hand, strenger, an’ w’en Wesley Tolliver gives a feller his hand hit means all there air ter mean,” exclaimed the latter, as warmly as his condition would permit, “an’ w’en ye need er friend in these parts jest come ter me.”

      He shouldered his gun, thereupon, and remarking that he might as well be going, strode away over a spur of the mountain, his clothes still dripping and sticking close to his muscular limbs. Dufour found his rod broken and his reel injured, by having felt the weight of Wesley Tolliver’s foot, and so he too turned to retrace his steps.

      Such an adventure could not fail to gain in spectacular grotesqueness as it took its place in the memory and imagination of Dufour. He had been in the habit of seeing such things on the stage and of condemning them out of hand as the baldest melodramatic nonsense, so that now he could not fairly realize the matter as something that had taken place in his life.

      He was very tired and hungry when he reached Hotel Helicon.

СКАЧАТЬ