"
"Don't brood over it. Don't think of it, dear. Or, if you must, think
of it only as a grim duty performed--a duty that proved, as nothing
else could have proved, that you are every inch a man."
Endicott drew her close against his pounding heart. "It proved that
the waters of the Erie Canal, if given the chance, can dash as madly
unrestrained as can the waters of the Grand Canyon."
She pressed her fingers to his lips: "Don't make fun of me. I was a
fool."
"I'm not making fun--I didn't know it myself, until--" the sentence was
drowned in a series of yells and curses and vile epithets that brought
both to the door to stare down at the trussed-up one who writhed on the
ground in a very paroxysm of rage.
"Conscience hurting you, or is it your jaw?" asked Endicott, as he
grinned into the rage-distorted features.
"Git them hosses outa that alfalfy! You ---- ---- ---- ---- ----!
I'll hev th' law on ye! I'll shoot ye! I'll drag yer guts out!" So
great was the man's fury that a thin white foam flecked his
hate-distorted lips, and his voice rose to a high-pitched whine.
Endicott glanced toward the two horses that stood, belly-deep, in the
lush vegetation.
"They like it," he said, calmly. "It's the first feed they have had in
two days." The man's little pig eyes glared red, and his voice choked
in an inarticulate snarl.
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