BEFORE the end of his first week's work Paul had reason to believe that Hoag was highly pleased with his executive ability. Paul had a good saddle-horse at his disposal, and he made daily visits to the various properties of his employer. He hired hands at his own discretion, and had a new plan of placing them on their honor as to the work that was to be done in his absence. Hoag was surprised. He had found it difficult to secure sufficient men, while under Paul's management the places were always filled. There was a clockwork regularity in it all. From his window every morning at sunrise Hoag could see men diligently at work in his fields, and at the tannery and mill. There was a fresh, buoyant activity in it all. The young man had replaced old, worn-out tools and implements with new ones, in which the workers took pride.

Paul's room looked as much like an office as a bedchamber. On his table Hoag discovered a most orderly set of accounts; on the walls hung charts, time-cards, and maps of the woodlands, with careful estimates of the cost of felling trees and the best disposition of the bark and timber. There was little doubt that Paul was infusing the spirit of the West into the slower habits of the South, and Hoag chuckled inwardly, finding it difficult to keep from openly expressing his enthusiasm. Paul convinced him, in a moment's talk, that the steam-engine and machinery at the cotton-gin were worn out, and that the whole should be renewed. Hoag saw, too, that the young man was right when he called attention to the careless manner in which the cotton lands had been fertilized. The negroes had used no judgment in placing the guano, having often put it on soil that did not need it—soil which could better be enriched by the till now unused loam of the marshes and the decayed matter of the forests.

“Go ahead with yore rat-killin',” Hoag was fond of saying. “You've got the right idea. I'm not such a old dog that I can't learn new tricks. Them fellows out West know a good many twists and turns that we ain't onto, an' I'm willin' to back you up with the cash on anything you propose.”

His niece was with him on the lawn one morning as he was opening his mail.

“Just look at that letter,” he said, with a low, pleased laugh, as he offered it for inspection. “I'm in a cool thousand dollars on this one deal. My scrub of a white-trash manager told me last week that the man in Atlanta who has been handlin' my leather was buncoin' me good an' strong. I didn't think he knowed what he was talkin' about then, but it seems he'd been readin' market reports an' freight rates, an' now I know he was right. He asked me to write to Nashville for prices. I did, an' here is an offer that is away ahead of any my Atlanta agent ever got, an' I save his commission to boot. Who'd 'a' thought, Eth', that such a puny no-account skunk as Ralph Rundel could be the daddy o' sech an up-to-date chap as Paul?”

Ethel's sweet face took on a serious cast. “I don't think we ought to judge our mountain people by their present unfortunate condition,” she said. “I was reading in history the other day that many of them are really the descendants of good English, Scotch, and Irish families. I have an idea, from his name alone, that Paul came from some family of worth.”

“You may be right,” Hoag admitted. “I know my daddy used to tell us boys that the Hoag stock away back in early times was big fighters, not afraid o' man, Indian, or beast. One of 'em was a pirate of the high seas, who had his own way purty much, and died with his boots on. Pa was proud o' that. He used to set an' tell about it. He learnt us boys to fight when we wasn't more'n knee high. The hardest lickin' Pa ever give me was for comin' home from school cryin' once because another chap had got the best of me. I never shall forget it. Pa was as mad as a wildcat at me, an' t'other fellow too. An' the next mornin', as I started to school, he tuck me out in the yard an' picked up a sharp rock, he did, an' showed me how to cup my hand over it and sorter hide it like. He told me to keep it in my pocket, an' if the fellow said another word to me to use it on 'im like a pair o' brass knucks.”

“Oh,” Ethel cried, “that wasn't right! It was a shame!”

“That's what the fellow thought.” Hoag burst out laughing. “He was standin' in a gang braggin' about our fight when I got to school an' I went up to 'im, I did, an' spit on him. He drawed back to hit me, but I let 'im have a swipe with my rock that laid his jaw open to the bone. He bled like a stuck pig, an' had to git a doctor to sew the crack up. After that you bet he let me alone, an' folks in general knowed I wouldn't do to fool with, either. The teacher o' that school—it was jest a log shack in the country—used to use the hickory on the boys, an' I've seen 'im even tap the bare legs o' the gals; but he never dared touch me. He knowed better. He drawed me up before 'im one day for stickin' a pin in a little runt of a boy, and axed me what I done it for. I looked 'im straight in the eyes, an' told 'im I did it because it would make the boy grow. I axed 'im what he expected to do about it. He had a switch in his hand, but he turned red an' hummed an' hawed while the whole school was laughin', an' then he backed down—crawfished on the spot—said he'd see me about it after school; but I didn't stay, an' that was the end of it. The man on the farm whar he boarded told Pa that the fellow was afraid to go out at night, thinkin' I'd throw rocks at 'im. Say, Eth', not changin' the subject, how are you an' Ed Peterson gittin' on?”

“Oh, about the same,” Ethel answered, with a slight shrug. “I got a letter from him yesterday. He had been to the hospital to inquire about Jennie, and he thought I'd like to hear she wasn't any worse.”

“Well, it ain't no business o' mine,” Hoag smiled knowingly, “but I hope you won't keep the fellow in torment any longer than you can help. He sorter confides in me, you know, an' every time I'm in Atlanta he throws out hints like he is in the dark an' can hardly see his way clear. He is a man with a long business head on 'im, an' he certainly knows what he wants in the woman line. He's powerfully well thought of in bankin' circles, an', as you know, his folks are among the best in the South.”

Ethel, frowning slightly, was avoiding her uncle's curious gaze. “I shall not marry any man,” she said, quite firmly, “until I know that I really love him.”

“Love a dog's hind foot!” Hoag sneered. “Looky' here, Eth', take it straight from me. That is a delusion an' a snare. Many an' many a good-hearted gal has spoiled her whole life over just that highfalutin notion. They've tied the'rselves to incompetent nincompoops with low brows an' hair plastered down over their eyes—chaps who couldn't make a decent livin'—and let men pass by that was becomin' financial powers in the land. Ed Peterson is of the right stripe. He ain't no fool. He knows you've got property in your own name an' that I've set somethin' aside for you, an' he's jest got sense enough to know that it is as easy to love a woman with money as without.”

“How does he know?” Ethel's lips were drawn tight; there was a steady light in her eyes as she stood looking toward the mountain. “How does he know that you intend, or even ever thought of—”

“Oh, you see, he has all my papers down thar,” Hoag explained. “He keeps 'em for me in the bank vault. He knows all about my business, and naturally he'd be on to a thing like that. I hain't never intimated that I'd coerce you in any way, but he knows I look favorably on the outcome. In fact, I've told 'im a time or two that, as far as I was concerned, he had a clean right-o'-way. He's sure I am on his side, but he don't seem at all satisfied about you. He's a jealous cuss, an' as much as I like him, I have to laugh at 'im sometimes.”

“Jealous!” Ethel exclaimed, with a lofty frown of vague displeasure.

“Yes; he gits that way once in a while on mighty slight provocation,” Hoag rambled on. “I was tellin' 'im t'other day, when I was down thar, about Paul Rundel comin' back, an' what a solid chap he'd turned out to be with all his bookish ideas an' odd religious notions—givin' hisse'f up to the law, an' the like. Ed didn't seem much interested till I told 'im that the women round about generally admired Paul, an' loved to hear 'im talk—like your mother does, for instance—an' that most of 'em say he has fine eyes an' is good-lookin'. Right then Ed up an' wanted to know whar Paul was livin'”—Hoag tittered—“whar he slept an' ate. An' when I told 'im he stayed here at the house with us, he had the oddest look about the eyes you ever saw. I teased 'im a little—I couldn't help it. I was in a good-humor, for he had just told me about a Northern feller that wanted to buy some o' my wild mountain-land at a good figure. But I let up on 'im after awhile, for he really was down in the mouth. 'Do you know,' said he, 'that I'd tackle any man on earth in a race for a woman quicker than I would a religious crank or a spindle-legged preacher of any denomination whatever.'”

“I don't think you ought to talk me over that way,” Ethel returned, coldly. “You'll make me dislike him. He and I are good friends now, but no girl likes to have men speak of her as if she were a piece of property on the market.”

“Oh, Ed Peterson is all right,” Hoag declared, his eyes on Jack, who was climbing a tree near the fence. “That child will fall and hurt hisse'f one o'these days. Oh, Jack! Come down from there—that's a good boy; come down, daddy wants you.” Looking at Ethel suddenly, he saw that she was smiling.

“What in thunder is funny about that?” he inquired.

Ethel laughed softly. “I was just thinking of your sneer at the idea of any one's loving another. You perhaps never loved any one else in your life, but your whole soul is wrapped up in Jack.”

“I reckon you are right,” Hoag confessed, half sheepishly, as he started down the steps toward his son. “Sometimes I wonder what's got into me. He has sech a strange, kittenish way o' gittin' round a fellow. I believe, if I was to come home some night an' find him sick or hurt I'd go stark crazy. He ain't like no other child I ever dealt with.”

“He'll be more and more of a mystery to you the older he gets,” Ethel answered. “He has a strong imagination and great talent for drawing. I'm teaching him. He loves to have me read to him, and he makes up stories out of his own head that really are wonderful.”

“I always thought he'd make a smart man, a teacher, or a lawyer, or something like that,” Hoag returned, proudly, and he hurried away, calling loudly to his son to get down.