read the sinister intent in the crouch of his
shoulders.

The hunchback shook him. "Jud," he shouted, "Jud, drop him."

The giant turned his head, blinked his eyes for a moment like a man
coming out of a sleep, and loosed his hand. The blacksmith slipped to
the floor, but he could not stand when he reached it. His knees gave
way. He caught the side of the leather bellows, and stumbling around it,
sat down on the anvil wheezing like a stallion with the heaves.

Ump stooped and picked up the hammer. Then he turned to the puffing
giant. "Jud," he said, "you ain't got sense enough to pour rain-water
out of a boot."

"Why?" said Jud.

"Why?" echoed the hunchback, "why? Suppose you had wrung the old
blatherskite's neck. How do you reckon we'd get a shoe on this horse?"

CHAPTER X

ON THE CHOOSING OF ENEMIES

It has been suggested by the wise that perhaps every passing event
leaves its picture on the nearest background, and may hereafter be
reproduced by the ingenuity of man. If so, and if genius led us into
this mighty gallery of the past, there is no one thing I would rather
look at than the face of a youth who stood rubbing his elbows in the
shop of old Christian, the blacksmith.

The slides of violent emotion, thrust in when unexpected, work such
havoc in a child's face,--that window to the world which half our lives
are spent in curtaining!

I wish to see the face of the lad only if the gods please. The canvas
about it is all tolerably clear,--the smoke-painted shop, and the
afternoon sun shining in to it through the window by the forge; and
through the great cracks, vertical sheets of sunlight thrust, wherein
the golden dust was dancing; the blacksmith panting on his anvil, his
bare arms bowed, and his hands pressed against his body as though to
help somehow to get the good air into his lungs, beads of perspiration
creeping from under the leather cap and tracing white furrows down his
sooty face; Jud leaning against the wall, and Ump squatting near El
Mahdi. The horse was not frightened. He jumped to avoid the flying
sledge. That was all. I cannot speak of the magnitude of his courage. I
can only say that he had the sublime indifference of a Brahmin from the
Ganges.

Presently the blacksmith had gotten the air in him, and he arose
scowling, picked up his tongs, fished the cart-iron out of the water,
thrust it into the coals and began to pump his bellows.

It was an invitation to depart and leave h