Todd responded, looking
into his hat to avoid meeting the eyes of the lady. "I didn't have no call
to toller, and he knowed how to run, I reckon. Time Mr. Harkless come out
the yard again, he was near out o' sight, and we see him take across the
road to the wedge-woods, near half-a-mile up. Somebody else with him then
--looked like a kid. Must 'a' cut acrost the field to join him. They're
fur enough towards home by this."
"Did Miss Helen shake hands with you four or five times?" asked Briscoe,
chuckling.
"No. Why?"
"Because Harkless did. My hand aches, and I guess William's does, too; he
nearly shook our arms off when we told him he'd been a fool. Seemed to do
him good. I told him he ought to hire somebody to take a shot at him every
morning before breakfast--not that it's any joking matter," the old
gentleman finished, thoughtfully.
"I should say not," said William, with a deep frown and a jerk of his head
toward the rear of the house. "_He_ jokes about it enough. Wouldn't even
promise to carry a gun after this. Said he wouldn't know how to use it.
Never shot one off since he was a boy, on the Fourth of July. This is the
third time he's be'n shot at this year, but he says the others was at a--
a--what'd he call it?"
"'A merely complimentary range,'" Briscoe supplied. He handed William a
cigar and bit the end off another himself.
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