Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

"Five years ago you drove me away from your father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant.

Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing.

And now I've got you, and you got to settle, you know!"

He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:

"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels.

Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity.

All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with it-and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the young man's breast.

He reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in the dark.

Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:

"That score is settled-damn you."

Then he robbed the body.

After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin.

Three-four-five minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan.

His hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a shudder.

Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly.

His eyes met Joe's.

"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.

"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.

"What did you do it for?"

"I! I never done it!"

"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."

Potter trembled and grew white.

"I thought I'd got sober.

I'd no business to drink to-night.

But it's in my head yet-worse'n when we started here.

Table of Contents