A dip of the flying hoof had cut a shallow gash across my forehead, and my hair was wet with blood, yet bruised and half stunned as I was from the hard fall, my sole longing was to reach and throttle that madman who had ridden me down in such demon style.
"You unchained devil!" I cried savagely, whirling him over upon his back, "I spared your life once to-night, but, by all the gods, I'LL not do it again!"
"Gosh, Cap, is thet you?" asked the voice of the other, feebly.
I started back, and lost my hold upon him.
"Bungay?" in an astonishment that nearly robbed me of utterance. "Good God, man! is this really you?"
"It's whut's left o' me," he answered solemnly, sitting up and feeling his head as if expecting to find it gone. "Thet wus 'bout ther worst ride ever I took."
"I should think it likely," I exclaimed, my anger rising again as I thought of it. "What, in Heaven's name, do you mean by riding down on me like that?"
"Holy Gee, Cap," he explained penitently, "ye don't go ter think I ever did it a purpose, do ye? Why, ther gosh-durned old thing run away."
"Sure; I've bin a hangin' on ter ther mane o' thet critter fer nigh 'pon three mile, an' a prayin' fer a feather bed ter light on. It's my last 'listment en ther cavalry, ye bet. I never seed none o' yer steam keers, but I reckon they don't go no faster ner thet blame hoss. Gosh, Cap, ye ain't got no call fer ter git mad; I couldn't a stopped her with a yoke o' steers, durned if I cud. I sorter reckon I know now 'bout whut Scott meant when he said, 'The turf the flying courser spurn'd,'--you bet this en did."
Jed rubbed his cheek as if it stung him, and I looked at him in the faint dawning light of day, and laughed. His peaked head and weazen face looked piteous enough, decorated as they were with the black loam through which he had ploughed; his coat was ripped from tail to collar, while one of his eyes was nearly closed where the bruised flesh had puffed up over it.
"'It is a fearful strife, for man endowed with mortal life,'" he quoted mournfully.
"You're right," I assented. "No doubt you had the worst of it. But how came you here?"
"Why, I wus a huntin' fer a hoss thar et ther picket post whin ye scared up ther bunch, an' by some sort a fule luck I got hole o' thet one, an' tuke arter ye, tho' in course I didn't know who it wus raised sich a rumpus, it wus so durned dark. Ther whole blame Yankee caboodle tuke a blaze et me, I reckon, leastwise they wus most durn keerless with ther shootin' irons, an' I rode one feller over, knocked him plum off his hoss down ther bank, kerslush inter ther water, by thunder, an' then ther derned critter I wus a straddlin' bolted. Thet's 'bout all I know, Cap, till I lit yere."