Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/84



REACHIN' BILL says "There's a heap o' difference in most men, but Jim Lane now he's more different than ary man you ever seed. Ain't no better neighbor'n Jim anywhere. Ride out o' his way any time t' do you a favor. But you bet there ain't ary man lives can ask Jim any fool questions while Jim's a lookin' at him. Tried it onct myself. Jim was a waitin' at th' ferry fer Wash Gibbs, an' we was a talkin' 'long right peart 'bout crops an' th' weather an' such, when I says, says I, like a dumb ol' fool, 'How'd you like it down in Texas, Jim, when you was there that time?' I gonies! His jaw shet with a click like he'd cocked a pistol, an' that look o' hisn, like he was a seein' plumb through you, come int' his eyes, an' he says, says he, quiet like, 'D' you reckon that rain over on James yesterday raised th' river much?' An' 'fore I knowed it, I was a tellin' him how that ol' red bull o' mine treed th' Perkins' boys when they was a possum huntin'."

Many stories of the Bald Knobber days, when the law of the land was the law of rifle and rope, were