“We generally decline doing what we don’t want to do,” said Joe.

“Look here, boy,” blustered the Pike man, “I reckon you don’t know me.  I’m from Pike County, Missouri, I am.  I’m a rip-tail roarer, I am.  I kin whip my weight in wildcats.”

“You told us that afore,” said Joshua placidly.

“Derned if I don’t mean it, too!” exclaimed the Pike County man, with a fierce frown.  “Do you know how I served a man last week?”

“No.  Tell us, won’t you?” said Joshua.

“We was ridin’ together over in Alameda County.  We’d met permiscuous, like we’ve met to-day.  I was tellin’ him how four b’ars attacked me once, and I fit ’em all single-handed, when he laughed, and said he reckoned I’d been drinkin’ and saw double.  If he’d knowed me better, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“What did you do?” asked Joshua, interested.

Joe, who was satisfied that the fellow was romancing, did not exhibit any interest.

“What did I do?” echoed the Pike County man fiercely.  “I told him he didn’t know the man he insulted.  I told him I was from Pike County, Missouri, and that I was a rip-tail roarer.”

“And could whip your weight in wildcats,” suggested Joe.

The Pike man appeared irritated.

“Don’t interrupt me, boy,” he said.  “It ain’t healthy.”

“After you’d made them remarks what did you do?” inquired Joshua.

“I told him he’d insulted me and must fight.  I always do that.”

“Did he fight?”

“He had to.”

“How did it come out?”

“I shot him through the heart,” said the man from Pike County fiercely.  “His bones are bleaching in the valley where he fell.”

“Sho!” said Joshua.

The Pike County man looked from one to the other to see what effect had been produced by his blood-curdling narration.  Joshua looked rather perplexed, as if he didn’t quite know what to think, but Joe seemed tranquil.

“I think you said it happened last week,” said Joe.

“If I said so, it is so,” said the Pike man, who in truth did not remember what time he had mentioned.

“I don’t question that.  I was only wondering how his bones could begin to bleach so soon after he was killed.”

“Just so,” said Joshua, to whom this difficulty had not presented itself before.

“Do you doubt my word, stranger?” exclaimed the Pike man, putting his hand to his side and fingering his knife.

“Not at all,” said Joe.  “But I wanted to understand how it was.”

“I don’t give no explanations,” said the Pike man haughtily, “and I allow no man to doubt my word.”

“Look here, my friend,” said Joshua, “ain’t you rather cantankerous?”

“What’s that?” demanded the other suspiciously.

“No offense,” said Joshua, “but you take a feller up so we don’t know exactly how to talk to you.”

“I take no insults,” said the Pike man.  “Insults must be washed out in blood.”