Jerry giggled with a shameless lack of feeling.  “Spit ’em out,” he cackled.  “They ain’t no more good to you than a mouthful of popcorn.”  He was not really amused at his partner’s mishap; on the contrary, he was more than a little concerned by it, but fatigue had rendered him absurdly hysterical, and the constant friction of mental, spiritual, and physical contact with Tom had fretted his soul as that sawdust inside his clothes had fretted his body.  “He, he!  Ho, ho!” he chortled.  “You don’t shove.  Oh no!  All the same, whenever I stop pullin’ you butt your brains out.”

“I didn’t shove!” The ferocity of this denial was modified and muffled by reason of the fact that a greater part of the speaker’s hand was inside his mouth and his fingers were taking stock of its contents.

“All right, you didn’t shove.  Have it your own way.  I said she was runnin’ out again.  We ain’t cuttin’ wedges, we’re cuttin’ boat-seats.”

“Well, why don’t you pull straight?  I can’t follow a line with you skinning the cat on your end.”

“My fault again, eh?” Mr. Quirk showed the whites of his eyes and his face grew purple.  “Lemme tell you something, Tom.  I’ve studied you, careful, as man and boy, for a matter of thirty years, but I never seen you in all your hideousness till this trip.  I got you now, though; I got you all added up and subtracted and I’ll tell you the answer.  It’s my opinion, backed by figgers, that you’re a dam’—­” He hesitated, then with a herculean effort be managed to gulp the remainder of his sentence.  In a changed voice he said:  “Oh, what’s the use?  I s’pose you’ve got feelin’s.  Come on, let’s get through.”

Linton peered down over the edge of the log.  “It’s your opinion I’m a what?” he inquired, with vicious calmness.

“Nothing.  It’s no use to tell you.  Now then, lift, bite, leg—­Why don’t you lift?”

“I am lifting.  Leggo your end!” Mr. Linton tugged violently, but the saw came up slowly.  It rose and fell several times, but with the same feeling of dead weight attached to it.  Tom wiped the sweat out of his eyes and once again in a stormy voice he addressed his partner:  “If you don’t get off them handles I’ll take a stick and knock you off.  What you grinnin’ at?”

“Why, she’s stuck, that’s all.  Drive your wedge—­” Jerry’s words ended in an agonized yelp; he began to paw blindly.  “You did that a-purpose.”

“Did what?”

“Kicked sawdust in my eyes.  I saw you!”

Mr. Linton’s voice when he spoke held that same sinister note of restrained ferocity which had characterized it heretofore.  “When I start kicking I won’t kick sawdust into your eyes!  I’ll kick your eyes into that sawdust.  That’s what I’ll do.  I’ll stomp ’em out like a pair of grapes.”

“You try it!  You try anything with me,” Jerry chattered, in a simian frenzy.  “You’ve got a bad reputation at home; you’re a malo hombre—­a side-winder, you are, and your bite is certain death.  That’s what they say.  Well, ever see a Mexican hog eat a rattler?  That’s me—­wild hog!”