s talk bad about you?"

"Not a one!" For once Eskew's guard was down, and his consistency led
him to destruction. "Not a one! It ain't in human nature. They're
bound to enjoy it!"

"Got any friends that would FIGHT for you?"

Eskew walked straight into this hideous trap. "No! There ain't a dozen
men ever LIVED that had! Caesar was a popular man, but he didn't have
a soul to help him when the crowd lit on him, and I'll bet old Mark
Antony was mighty glad they got him out in the yard before it
happened,--HE wouldn't have lifted a finger without a gang behind him!
Why, all Peter himself could do was to cut off an ear that wasn't no
use to anybody. What are you tryin' to get AT?"

The Squire had him; and paused, and stroked his chin, to make the ruin
complete. "Then I reckon you'll have to admit," he murmured, "that,
while I ain't defendin' Joe Louden's character, it was kind of proper
for him to stand by a feller that wouldn't hear nothin' against him,
and fought for him as soon as he DID hear it!"

Eskew Arp rose from his chair and left the hotel. It was the only
morning in all the days of the conclave when he was the first to leave.

Squire Buckalew looked after the retreating figure, total triumph
shining brazenly from his spectacles. "I expect," he explained,
modestly, to the others,--"I expect I don't think any more of Joe
Louden than he does, and I'll be glad when Canaan sees the last of him
for good; but sometimes the temptation to argue with Eskew does lead me
on to kind of git the better of him."

When Happy Fear had suffered--with a give-and-take simplicity of
patience--his allotment of months in durance, and was released and sent
into the streets and sunshine once more, he knew that his first duty
lay in the direction of a general apology to Joe. But the young man
was no longer at Beaver Beach; the red-bearded proprietor dwelt alone
there, and, receiving Happy with scorn and pity, directed him to
retrace his footsteps to the town.

"Ye must have been in the black hole of incarceration indeed, if ye
haven't heard that Mr. Louden has his law-office on the Square, and his
livin'-room behind the office. It's in that little brick buildin'
straight acrost from the sheriff's door o' the jail--ye've been
neighbors this long time! A hard time the boy had, persuadin' any one
to rent to him, but by payin' double the price he got a place at last.
He's a practisin' lawyer now, praise the Lord! And all the