'Anybody want to shoot you?' Mart inquired.
'Well and I guess you'll believe they did day before yesterday'
'If you're talking about up at that cabin, it was me.'
Leander gave Mart a leer. 'That won't do,' said he. 'He's put you up to telling me that, and I'm going to Cornwall, Connecticut. I know what's good for me, I guess.'
'I tell you we were looking for the ferry, and I signalled you across the river.'
'No, no,' said Leander. 'I never seen you in my life. Don't you be like him and take me for a fool.'
'All right. Why did they want to murder you?'
'Why?' said the man, shrilly. 'Why? Hadn't they broke in and filled themselves up on his piah-chuck till they were crazy-drunk? And when I came along didn't they—'
'When you came along they were nowhere near there,' said Mart.
'Now you're going to claim it was me drunk it and scattered all them bottles of his,' screamed Leander, backing away. 'I tell you I didn't. I told him I didn't, and he knowed it well, too. But he's just that mean when he's mad he likes to put a thing on me whether or no, when he never seen me touch a drop of whiskey, nor any one else, neither. They were riding and shooting loose over the country like they always do on a drunk. And I'm glad they stole his stuff. What business had he to keep it at Billy Moon's old cabin and send me away up there to see it was all right? Let him do his own dirty work. I ain't going to break the laws on the salary he pays me.'
The Clallam family had gathered round Leander, who was stricken with volubility. 'It ain't once in a while, but it's every day and every week,' he went on, always in a woolly scream. 'And the longer he ain't caught the bolder he gets, and puts everything that goes wrong on to me. Was it me traded them for that liquor this afternoon? It was his squaw, Big Tracks, and he knowed it well. He lets that mud-faced baboon run the house when he's off, and I don't have the keys nor nothing, and never did have. But of course he had to come in and say it was me just because he was mad about having you see them Siwashes hollering around. And he come and shook me where I was sittin', and oh, my, he knowed well the lie he was acting. I bet I've got the marks on my neck now. See any red marks?' Leander exhibited the back of his head, but the violence done him had evidently been fleeting. 'He'll be awful good to you, for he's that scared—'
Leander stood tremulously straight in silence, his lip sagging, as Wild-Goose Jake called pleasantly from the other bank. 'Come to supper, you folks,' said he. 'Why, Andy, I told you to bring them across, and you've let them picket their horses. Was you expectin' Mrs. Clallam to take your arm and ford six feet of water?' For some reason his voice sounded kind as he spoke to his assistant.
'Well, mother?' said Clallam.
'If it was not for Nancy, John—'
'I know, I know. Out on the shore here on this side would be a pleasanter bedroom for you, but' (he looked up the valley) 'I guess our friend's plan is more sensible to-night.'
So they decided to leave the wagon behind and cross to the cabin. The horses put them with not much wetting to the other bank, where Jake, most eager and friendly, hovered to meet his party, and when they were safe ashore pervaded his premises in their behalf.
'Turn them horses into the pasture, Andy,' said he, 'and first feed 'em a couple of quarts.' It may have been hearing himself say this, but tone and voice dropped to the confidential and his sentences came with a chuckle. 'Quarts to the horses and quarts to the Siwashes and a skookum pack of trouble all round, Mrs. Clallam! If I hedn't a-came to stop it a while ago, why about all the spirits that's in stock jest now was bein' traded off for some blamed ponies the bears hev let hobble on the range unswallered ever since I settled here. A store on a trail like this here, ye see, it hez to keep spirits, of course; and—well, well! here's my room; you ladies'll excuse, and make yourselves at home as well as you can.'
