acute angle to further attack.

"You jest get and change 'em," said Minty.

The sudden collapse of the bellows broke in upon the soothing refrain of
Mr. Sharpe, and caused him to turn also.

"It's Minty," he said, replacing the horseshoe on the coals, and setting
his powerful arms and the sledge on the anvil with an exaggerated
expression of weariness.

"Yes; it's me," said Minty, "and Creation knows it's time I DID come, to
keep that boy from ruinin' us with his airs and conceits."

"Did ye bring over any o' that fever mixter?"

"No. Bradley sez you're loading yerself up with so much o' that bitter
bark--kuinine they call it over there--that you'll lift the ruff off
your head next. He allows ye ain't got no ague; it's jest wind and
dyspepsy. He sez yer's strong ez a hoss."

"Bradley," said Sharpe, laying aside his sledge with an aggrieved manner
which was, however, as complacent as his fatigue and discontent, "ez one
of them nat'ral born finikin skunks ez I despise. I reckon he began
to give p'ints to his parents when he was about knee-high to Richelieu
there. He's on them confidential terms with hisself and the Almighty
that he reckons he ken run a saw-mill and a man's insides at the same
time with one hand tied behind him. And this finikin is up to his
conceit: he wanted to tell me that that yer handy brush dump outside our
shanty was unhealthy. Give a man with frills like that his own way and
he'd be a sprinkling odor cologne and peppermint all over the country."

"He set your shoulder as well as any doctor," said Minty.

"That's bone-settin', and a nat'ral gift," returned Sharpe, as
triumphantly as his habitual depression would admit; "it ain't conceit
and finikin got out o' books! Well," he added, after a pause, "wot's
happened?"

Minty's face slightly changed. "Nothin'; I kem back to get some things,"
she said shortly, moving away.

"And ye saw HIM?"

"Ye-e-s," drawled Minty, carelessly, still retreating.

"Bixby was along here about noon. He says the stranger was suthin' high
and mighty in his own country, and them 'Frisco millionaires are quite
sweet on him. Where are ye goin'?"

"In the house."

"Well, look yer, Minty. Now that you're here, ye might get up a batch
o' hot biscuit for supper. Dinner was that promiscous and experimental
to-day, along o' Richelieu's nat'ral foolin', that I think I could git
outside of a little suthin' now, if only to prop up a kind of innard
sinkin' that takes m