"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 finishing 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 passed 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, assuming 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?"
"Why, then, I'd be compelled to snuff you out slick off?"
Sam Scott smiled as he spoke, and touched the handle of his revolver.
"Which means," said Ned, "that you would become a cold-blooded
murderer."
"So you Britishers call it."
"And so Judge Lynch would call it, if I am not mistaken, which would
insure your being snuffed out too, pretty effectually."
"Wrong, you air, stranger," replied the trader; "Judge Lynch regards
affairs of honour in a very different light, I guess. I don't think
he'd scrag me for that."
Further investigation of this interesting topic was interrupted by Abel
Jefferson, who had been gazing in wrapt admiration at the picture for at
least five minutes, pronouncing the work "fuss rate," emphatically.
"It's jest what'll warm up the old 'ooman's heart, like a big fire in a
winter day. Won't she screech when she claps her peepers on't, an' go
yellin' round among the neighbours, shewin' the pictur' o' `her boy
Abel,' an' his house at the gold diggin's?"
The two friends commented pretty freely on the merits of the work,
without the smallest consideration for the feelings of the artist.
Fortunately they had nothing but good to say about it. Sam Scott,
indeed, objected a little to the sketchy manner in which some of the
subordinate accessories were touched in, and remarked that the two large
hairs on the mole were almost invisible; but Jefferson persisted in
maintaining that the work was "fuss rate," and faultless.
The stipulated sum was paid; and Ned, bidding his new friends
good-morning, returned to the inn, for the purpose of discussing dinner
and plans with Tom Collins.