There was no sleep possible for him just now; his limbs twitched
restlessly, and he felt the prick of strong emotion in his blood.
"I say, Pinetop, what do you think of the fight?" he asked with an
embarrassed boyish eagerness. In the faint light of the fire his eyes
burned like coals and there was a thick black stain around his mouth. The
hand in which he had held his ramrod was of a dark rust colour, as if the
stain of the battle had seared into the skin. A smell of hot powder still
hung about his clothes.
The mountaineer left the shadow of the fence corner and slowly dragged
himself into the little glow, where he sat puffing at his corncob pipe. He
gave an easy, sociable nod and stared silently at the embers.
"Was it just what you imagined it would be?" went on Dan, curiously.
Pinetop took his pipe from his mouth and nodded again. "Wall, 'twas and
'twan't," he answered pleasantly.
"I must say it made me sick," admitted Dan, leaning his head in his hand.
"I've always been a fool about the smell of blood; and it made me downright
sick."
"Wall, I ain't got much of a stomach for a fight myself," returned Pinetop,
reflectively. "You see I ain't never fought anythin' bigger'n a skunk until
to-day; and when I stood out thar with them bullets sizzlin' like fryin'
pans round my head, I kind of says to myself: 'Look here, what's all this
fuss about anyhow? If these here folks have come arter the niggers, let 'em
take 'em off and welcome.
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