ight of way. His companion, a smallish
man in striped trousers and fawn-colored overcoat, sprang lightly out of
the trap, with the double purpose of clearing the road and amusing
himself with Liz. The saucy smile with which she met him turned into a
frown, however, as he began brutally kicking the knees of the oxen to
make them stand over.

The patient brutes crowded into the ditch.

"Whoa, there! Gee, Buck! gee, Bright!" ordered the youth, and the team
lurched back into the road. At the same time he stepped over the
cart-beam and came forward on the off side of the team.

"Ye'd better quit that, mister!" he exclaimed, with a threatening note
in his voice.

"Give the lout a slap in the mouth, and make him get out of the way,"
cried the man in the trap.

But the man in the fawn-colored overcoat was busy. Liz was much to his
taste.

"Jump in and take a ride with us, my pretty," said he.

But Liz shrank away, regretting her provocative glances now that she saw
the kind of men she had to do with.

"Come, come," coaxed the man, "don't be shy, my blooming daisy. We'll
drive you right in to the Corners and set up a good time for you." And,
grasping her hand, he slipped an arm about her waist and tried to kiss
her lips. As she tore herself fiercely away, she heard the man in the
trap laugh loud approval. She struck at her insulter with clenched hand;
but she did not touch him, for just then something happened to him. The
long arm of the youth went out like a cannon-ball, and the drummer
sprawled in the ditch. He nimbly picked himself up and darted upon his
assailant, while the man in the trap shouted to him encouragingly,--

"Give it to him pretty, Mike."

But the young countryman caught him by the neck with long, vise-like
fingers, inexorable, and, holding him thus helpless at arm's length,
struck him again heavily in the ribs, and hurled him over the ditch into
a blueberry thicket, where he remained in dazed discretion.

Though of a lamb-like gentleness on ordinary occasions, the young
countryman was renowned throughout the Settlement for the astonishing
strength that lurked in his lean frame. At this moment he was well
aroused, and Liz found herself watching him with a consuming admiration.
He no longer slouched, and his pale eyes, like polished steel, shot a
menacing gleam. He stepped forward and took the horse by the bridle.

"Now," said he to the driver, "I've gi'n ye half the road, an' if ye
can't drive by