ake me coy. So I
followed his own lead finally and blurted the question right out,
without any fancy conversational trimmings, and he told me how it had
happened.

"One of his horses had kicked him. You look as though you could have
guessed it yourself! He didn't tell you, did he, Flash? No-o-o? Well,
that was it. He said he had gone blundering in on them the night
before, to feed, without speaking to them in the darkness. It isn't
hard to guess what had made him absent-minded that night. You can't
know, just from seeing it now, how bad that fresh cut was, either. It
looked bad enough to lay any man out, and I told him so. But he said
he had managed to feed his horses just the same--he'd worked them
pretty hard that week in the timber!

"It wasn't merely what he said, you see; it was the way he said it.
I've made more fuss before now over pounding my finger with a tack
hammer. And I did a lot of talking myself in that next minute or two.
A man can say a whole lot that is almost worth while when he talks
strictly to himself. It wasn't alone the fact that he had been able to
get back on his feet and keep on traveling after a blow that would
have caved in most men's skulls that hit me so hard. The recollection
of what his eyes had been like that night before, when he had handed
the Judge the lie without even opening his lips, helped too--and the
way he shut his mouth, there on the station platform, when I gave him
an opening to say his little say concerning the village in general. He
just smiled, Flash, a slow sort of a smile, and never said a word.

"Man, he knew how to take punishment! Oh, don't doubt that! I realized
right then that he had been taking it for years, ever since they had
counted his father out, with the whole house yelling for the stuff to
get him, too. He'd been hanging on, hoping for a fluke to save him.
He'd been hanging on, and he didn't squeal, either, while he was doing
it. Not--one--yip--out--of--him!

"So I made him give me back the card and I wrote the rest of this
stuff across the back of it. And again I'll tell you, Flash, right
now, I'm not sure why I did it. But I'll tell you, too, just as I told
myself a few mornings ago, back there on that village station
platform, that if I were Jed The Red and I had my choice, I wouldn't
choose to go up against a man who had been waiting five years for an
opening to swing. No--I would not! For he's quite likely to do more or
less damage. I never thoug