Part 26 (1/2)

Ned laughed inwardly, and proceeded with his work in silence.

”I guess there's Sam at the door,” said Abel Jefferson, blowing a cloud of smoke from his mouth that might have made a small cannon envious.

The door flew open as he spoke, and Sam Scott, the trader, strode into the hut. He was a tall, raw-boned man, with a good-humoured but intensely impudent expression of countenance, and tanned to a rich dark brown by constant exposure to the weather in the prosecution of his arduous calling.

”Halloo! stranger, what air _you_ up to!” inquired Sam, sitting down on the bench behind Ned, and looking over his shoulder.

Ned might perhaps have replied to this question despite its unceremoniousness, had not the Yankee followed it up by spitting over his shoulder into the fire-place. As it was, he kept silence, and went on with his work.

”Why I _do_ declare,” continued Sam, ”if you ain't _photogged_ here as small as life, mole an' all, like nothin'. I say, stranger, ain't you a Britisher?”

Sam again followed up his question with a shot at the fire-place.

”Yes,” answered Ned, somewhat angrily, ”and I am so much of a Britisher, that I positively object to your spitting past my ear.”

”No, you don't, do you? Now, that is cur'ous. I do believe if you Britishers had your own way, you'd not let us spit at all. What air you better than we, that you hold your heads so high, and give yourselves sich airs! that's what _I_ want to know.”

Ned's disgust having subsided, he replied--

”If we do hold our heads high, it is because we are straightforward, and not afraid to look any man in the face. As to giving ourselves airs, you mistake our natural reserve and dislike to obtrude ourselves upon strangers for pride; and in this respect, at least, if in no other, we are better than you--we don't spit all over each other's floors and close past each other's noses.”

”Wall, now, stranger, if you choose to be resarved, and we choose to be free-an'-easy, where's the differ? We've a right to have our own customs, and do as we please as well as you, I guess.”

”Hear, hear!” cried Abel Jefferson, commencing to rock himself again, and to smoke more violently than ever. ”What say ye to that, mister?”

”Only this,” answered Ned, as he put the finis.h.i.+ng touches to his sketch, ”that whereas we claim only the right to do to and with ourselves what we please, you Yankees claim the right to do to and with _everybody, else_ what you please.I have no objection whatever to your spitting, but I do object to your spitting over my shoulder.”

”Do you?” said Sam Scott, in a slightly sarcastic tone, ”an' suppose I don't stop firin' over your shoulder, what then?”

”I'll make you,” replied Ned, waxing indignant at the man's cool impudence.

”How?” inquired Sam.

Ned rose and shook back the flaxen curls from his flushed face, as he replied, ”By opening the door and kicking you out of the hut.”

He repented of the hasty expression the moment it pa.s.sed his lips, so he turned to Jefferson and handed him the drawing for inspection. Sam Scott remained seated. Whether he felt that Ned was thoroughly capable of putting his threat in execution or not we cannot tell, but he evinced no feeling of anger as he continued the conversation.

”I guess if you did that, you'd have to fight me, and you'd find me pretty smart with the bowie-knife an' the revolver, either in the dark or in daylight.”

Sam here referred to the custom prevalent among the Yankees in some parts of the United States of duelling with bowie-knives or with pistols in a darkened room.

”And suppose,” answered Ned, with a smile--”suppose that I refused to fight, what then?”

”Why, then, you'd be called a coward all over the diggin's, and you'd have to fight to clear your character.”

”And suppose I didn't care a straw for being called a coward, and wouldn't attempt to clear my character?”

”Why, then, I guess, I'd have to kick you in public till you were obligated to fight.”

”But suppose still further,” continued Ned, a.s.suming the air of a philosopher discussing a profoundly-abstruse point in science--”suppose that, being the stronger man, I should prevent you from kicking me by knocking you down, what then?”