Tom Slade on the River

Excerpt:
Jeb Rushmore, with methodical accuracy, spat at a sapling near by.

“And did you?” asked his listener.

Jeb spat again with leisurely deliberation. “’N’ I did,” said he.
[2]

“You always hit, don’t you, Jeb?”

“Purty near.”

The boy edged along the log on which they were sitting and looked up admiringly into the wrinkled, weatherbeaten face. A smile which did not altogether penetrate through the drooping gray mustache was visible enough in the twinkling eyes and drew the wrinkles about them like sun rays.

“They’ll come,” said he.

The boy was satisfied for he had absolute confidence that his companion could not make a mistake.

“But suppose you hadn’t hit him—I mean fetched him?”

“Son, wot yer got to do, yer do. When I told General Custer onct that we’d get picked off like cherries offen a tree if we tried rushin’ a pack uv Sioux that was in ambush, he says, ‘Jeb, mebbe it cain’t be done, I ain’t sayin’, but jest the same, we got ter do it.’ Some on us got dropped, but we done it.”