IT was now near noon, as was indicated by the clock on the low, dome-capped tower of the Court House in the center of the village square. Paul recognized several idlers who stood on a street-corner as he drove past. They looked at him and smiled approvingly, and one cried out:

“Bully for you, Paul! You are all wool and a yard wide.”

“And guaranteed not to tear or shrink!” another added, with a laugh over his borrowed wit; but the boy neither answered nor smiled. A sudden breeze from the gray, beetling cliffs of the near-by mountain fanned his damp brow, and he gazed straight ahead down the long road. Hot broodings over his wrongs surged within him, and the fact that he had so completely routed his enemies failed to comfort him at all. They could still laugh and sneer and repeat behind his back what they had dared to say to his face about a helpless man who had offended no one. Cowards that they were, they would keep their lies afloat, and even add to them.

His road took him past the lumber-yard, sawmills, brick and lime kilns, and through the sordid negro quarter, which was a cluster of ramshackle shanties made of unpainted upright boards grown brown and fuzzy, with now and then a more primitive log cabin, a relic of pioneer and Cherokee days. Vast fields of fertile lands belonging to his employer, James Hoag, lay on both sides of the road just outside the village. There were stretches of corn, cotton, and wheat in the best state of cultivation, beyond which, on a gentle rise, stood the planter's large two-story house, a white frame structure with a double veranda and outside blinds painted green. Beyond the house, at the foot of the slope, could be seen the dun roofs of the long sheds and warehouses of Hoag's tannery, to which Paul was taking the bark. A big gate had to be opened, and the boy was drawing rein with the intention of getting down when Hoag himself, astride a mettlesome bay mare, passed.

“Wait, I'll open it,” he said, and spurring his mount close to the gate he kicked the wooden latch upward and swung the gate aside. “Drive ahead” he ordered. “I can pull it to.”

Paul obeyed, indifferent even to the important man's presence. He would have forgotten Hoag's existence had the mare not borne him alongside the wagon again. The horseman was a middle-aged man of sturdy physique, fully six feet in height, and above two hundred pounds in weight. His skin was florid, his limbs were strong, firm, and muscular, his hands red and hair-grown. There was a cold, cruel expression in the keen blue eyes under the scraggy brows, which was not softened by a sweeping tobacco-stained mustache. He wore well-fitting top-boots which reached above the knee, and into which the legs of his trousers had been neatly folded. A wheeled spur of polished brass was strapped to the heel of his right boot. He sat his horse with the ease and grace of a cavalry officer. He held his mare in with a tense hand, and scanned the load of bark with a critical eye.

“How much more of that lot is left up there?” he asked.

“About two cords, or thereabouts,” the boy said, carelessly.

“Well,” Hoag said, “when you get that all stacked under the shed I want you to haul down the lot on Barrett's ridge. There is a good pile of it, and it's been exposed to the weather too long. I don't know exactly where it lies; but Barrett will point it out if he ain't too lazy to walk up to it.”

“I know where it is,” Paul informed him. “I helped strip it.”

“Oh, well, that's all right. You might put on higher standards and rope 'em together at the top. That dry stuff ain't very heavy, and it is down grade.”

He showed no inclination to ride on, continuing to check his mare. Presently his eyes fell on the stock of the gun which was half hidden by the bark, and his lips curled in a cold smile of amusement.

“Say,” he said, with a low laugh, “do you go loaded for bear like this all the time?”

A slow flush of resentment rose into the boy's face. He stared straight at Hoag, muttered something inarticulately and then, with a distinct scowl, looked away.

The man's careless smile deepened; the boy's manner and tone were too characteristic and genuine, and furnished too substantial a proof of a quality Hoag admired to have offended him. Indeed, there was a touch of tentative respect in his voice, a gleam of callous sympathy in his eyes as he went on:

“I was at the post-office just now. I saw it all. I noticed them fellows layin' for you the other day, and wondered what would come of it. I don't say it to flatter you, Paul”—here Hoag chuckled aloud—“but I don't believe you are afraid of anything that walks the earth. I reckon it is natural for a man like me to sorter love a fair fight. It may be because you work for me and drive my team; but when I looked out the post-office window as I was stampin' a letter, and saw them whelps lyin' in wait for you, I got mad as hell. I wasn't goin' to let 'em hurt you, either. I'd have kicked the breath out of 'em at the last minute, but somehow I was curious to see what you'd do, and, by gum! when that first brickbat whizzed by you, and you lit down with your gun leveled, and they scooted to shelter like flyin' squirrels, I laid back and laughed till I was sore. That was the best bottle of medicine they ever saw, and they would have had a dose in a minute. They slid into the blacksmith's shop like it was a fort an' shut the door. I reckin you'd have shot through the planks if Budd Tibbs hadn't stopped you.”

No appreciation of these profuse compliments showed itself in the boy's face. It was rigid, colorless and sullen, as if he regarded the man's observations as entirely too personal to be allowed. An angry retort trembled on his lips, and even this Hoag seemed to note and relish. His smile was unctuous; he checked his horse more firmly.

“They won't bother you no more,” he said, more seductively. “Such skunks never run ag'in' your sort after they once see the stuff you are made of. That gun and the way you handled it was an eye-opener. Paul, you are a born fightin' man, and yore sort are rare these days. You'll make yore way in the world. Bein' afraid of man or beast will stunt anybody's growth. Pay back in the coin you receive, and don't put up with insult or abuse from anybody. Maybe you don't know why I first took a sorter likin' to you. I'd be ashamed to tell you if I didn't know that you was jest a boy at the time, and I couldn't afford to resent what you said. You was a foot shorter than you are now, and not half as heavy. You remember the day yore pa's shoats broke through the fence into my potato field? You was out in the wet weeds tryin' to drive 'em home. I'd had a drink or two more than I could tote, and several things had gone crooked with me, and I was out o' sorts. I saw you down there, and I made up my mind that I'd give you a thrashin'”—Hoag was smiling indulgently—“and on my way through the thicket I cut me a stout hickory withe as big at the butt as my thumb, and taperin' off like a whip at the end. You remember how I cussed and ripped and went on?”

“You bet I remember,” Paul growled, and his eyes flashed, “and if you'd hit me once it would have been the worst day's work you ever did.”

The planter blinked in mild surprise, and there was just a hint of chagrin in his tone. “Well, I didn't touch you. Of course I wasn't afraid of you or the rock you picked up. I've never seen the man I was afraid of, much less a boy as little as you was; but as you stood there, threatenin' to throw, I admit I admired your grit. The truth is, I didn't have the heart, even drunk as I was, to lick you. Most boys of your size would have broke and run. My boy, Henry, would, I know.”

“He'll fight all right,” Paul said. “He's no coward. I like him. He's been a friend to me several times. He is not as bad as some folks think. He drinks a little, and spends money free, and has a good time; but he's not stuck up. He doesn't like to work, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't, in his place. Huh! you bet I wouldn't.”

“Well, I'm goin' to put 'im between the plow-handles before long,” the planter said, with a frown. “He's gettin' too big for his britches. Say, you'll think I'm a friend worth havin' some time. Just after that thing happened at the post-office, and you'd gone into Tye's shop, Budd Tibbs turned to me and said he believed it was his duty as marshal to make a council case against you for startin' to use that gun as you did. I saw the way the land lay in a minute. Them skunks are akin to his wife, and he was mad. I told him, I did, that he might summon me as a witness, and that I'd swear you acted in self-defense, and prefer counter-charges against the dirty whelps. Huh, you ought to have seen him wilt! He knows how many votes I control, and he took back-water in fine shape.”

“I reckon I can look after my own business,” the boy made answer, in a surly tone. “I ain't afraid o' no court. I'll have my rights if I die gettin' 'em.” Hoag laughed till his sides shook. “I swear you are the funniest cuss I ever knew. You ain't one bit like a natural boy. You act and talk like a man that's been through the rubs.” Hoag suddenly glanced across a meadow where some men were at work cutting hay, and his expression changed instantly. “I never told 'em to mow thar,” he swore, under his breath. “Take your bark on. You know where to put it,” and turning his horse he galloped across the field, his massive legs swinging to and from the flanks of his mare.