The Wedge of Gold | Page 7

to reflect on what a fool he was making of himself.
"He was only the more furious at that. He sprang backward two or three feet, then drawing a huge knife made with it a savage lunge at me. I seized his wrist, and after a brief struggle wrenched the knife from his hand, but still holding his wrist told him that unless he grew quiet I should have to box his ears.
"The boys laughed and jeered at this, which only further incensed the ungovernable brute, and he declared that he would give $100 for the chance to whip me in a fair fist fight.
"At this I released his wrist and told him he should be accommodated. The boys gathered in a ring around us. Turner came at me like a wild beast, but he had no scientific use of his hands and I had had a little practice.
"I knocked aside his blow with my left, and with the open palm of my right hand gave him a sounding box on his left ear.
"The cowboys yelled with delight at this, crying, 'Turner, did you hear that?'
"Turner rallied and made another rush at me. This time I struck his blow aside with my right hand and boxed his right ear with the palm of my left hand.
"So the business continued for several seconds. I never closed my hands, but just boxed him right and left, the boys fairly screaming with joy, until I finally gathered all my strength and gave him one resounding cuff that sent him full length to grass, the most abject-looking, baffled bully that I ever saw.
"Seeing how completely whipped he was, I went to him, and taking him by the arm, said, 'Turner, you were right about my treating; come in and take a drink with me. There's nothing like exercise to make one thirsty.'
"But he would not drink. He arose, skulked away, got his gun and knife, mounted his mustang, and left that part of Texas.
"Next day the boys told Jordan about the scrap, and he danced for joy. He at once rode away to the station to get all the particulars, and when he returned at night he called me aside and said, 'Jim, yo' is thinkin' of leavin' har. We couldn't get along at all without yo'. I seen my lawyer ter-day and told him ter make a deed o' half this ranch 'nd stock ter Jim Sedgwick, and so thar firm now war "Tom and Jim" er "Jim and Tom," I don't give er continental which.'
"Of course I could not accept the gift, but it took me three days to satisfy the great-hearted man why I could not. I told him I was bound to go further West, that his heart had run away with his head, and he yielded at last, but insisted that the offer was a 'squar' one and would last always if I ever came back.
"When the year was up I had saved $212 at regular cowboy wages and would accept no more, though Jordan begged me to take 'sunthun decent.'
"I came West, learned a little of mining--how to hold and hit a drill--in Colorado, then took a run up into Montana, came down across Idaho and finally reached this place. Liking the ways of things here I went to work. I have not missed a dozen shifts in three years."
Browning chuckled at the story, and when Sedgwick ceased he said:
"Isn't it jolly queer that we have been thrown together? My home was in Devonshire, England. My step-father was a merchant who finally became a half banker and half broker. When I was a little kid my mother died, and my father after a while married a widow who had a little daughter five years younger than myself. My father died, and my stepmother married a man named Hamlin.
"When I became twenty-two years old, my step-father wanted me to marry this little girl. I declined, first, because she seemed to me a sister, and second, I was head and ears in love with the step-daughter of the village barrister. The girl was my sister's running mate, so to speak, and though I had never said one word of love to her, my heart was on the lowest level in the dust at her feet. It was, by Jove!
"In those days I was a bit wild, I guess. I did not get out of school with much honor. I used to ride steeple-chase and hurdle races and dance all night. Sometimes, too, I had a scrap, and was careless about the money I spent. The old barrister--his name was Jenvie--believed I was the worst kid in the United Kingdom. One evening Rose Jenvie--her real name was Leighton, she was my glory, you know--had been visiting my foster-sister, and remaining until after