"Stand back," he said. "If any one of you tries to enter, I'll blow
his brains out. The men in here, are my prisoners, not yours. I took
them when most of you were snoring in bed, and I'll do what I please
with them. As for Hubbard and these West Stockbridge men, who make so
much noise, this is none of their business, anyway. If they don't like
the way we manage here in Stockbridge, let them go home."
As he finished speaking, Abner shouldered his way by him, from within,
and stepped out between him and the crowd. Deliberately taking off his
coat and laying it down, and pitching his hat after it, he drawlingly
observed:
"Look a here, fellers. I be ez disapp'inted ez any on ye, not ter
see them fellers licked. But ye see, 'twuz the Cap'n that saved my
back, an it don't nohow lie in my mouth no more'n doos yourn to call
names naow he's tuk a noshin tew save theirn. So naow, Cap'n," he
continued, as he drew his immense bulk squarely up, "I guess you won't
need them shooters. I'll break ther necks ez fass ez they come on."
But they didn't come on. Perez' determined attitude and words,
especially his appeal to local prejudice, perhaps the most universal
and virulent of all human instincts, would have of themselves suffered
to check and divide the onset, and Abner's business-like proposal
quite ended the demonstration.
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