ting encouragement to his comrade, who,
hot and fagged with a long ride on a somewhat rough animal, now found it
all he could do to keep his seat.

The aggrieved proprietor's voice rose to a perfect yell of fury as he
gained the spot and noted the havoc wrought. Mealie stalks were
snapping off short, one after the other, and a broad, trampled, and
broken patch, as if the place had been roughly mown, marked the passage
of the horse. Mad with rage, he picked up a stone.

"Here, drop that, will you?" cried Gerard, warningly.

Too late. The stone whizzed, and striking the horse on the hind
quarters, caused that quadruped to kick out wildly. Harry was deposited
in a face among the broken stalks, while his steed, thus relieved, tore
away snorting and kicking--crashing through the standing crop with a
diabolical indifference to the feelings of its owner which made the
latter foam again.

"Come out of that!" he raved, as poor Harry began ruefully and rather
gingerly to pick himself up. "Come out of it. I'll have twenty pound
out of you for this little bit of fun. But first of all I'm going to
give you the biggest licking you ever had in your life, you
spick-and-span popinjay masher!"

"We'll see about that part of the business," said Gerard, who, seeing
the hostile turn of affairs, had dismounted and hitched his bridle to a
convenient rail. "If there's going to be any fighting, it'll have to be
done fair, you understand."

"What the blazes have you got to say to it anyhow?" cried the man,
turning to Gerard, but with something of the light of battle gone out of
his unprepossessing countenance as he took in the well-knit frame and
determined aspect of his younger opponent.

"Just this," said Gerard. "My chum there's shaken by his fall, and I
doubt if he's much good with his fists or a match for you. So if
there's any licking to be done, just start here. See?"

But the man apparently did not see. He hesitated, staring at the
speaker, his features working with rage. He was a hard-looking customer
of about forty, with shifty eyes and a shaggy sandy beard. His raiment
withal was slovenly, consisting of moleskin trousers none too clean, a
collarless flannel shirt, also none too clean, and a slouch hat.

"Why don't you fence your confounded mealie-field, or whatever you call
it?" said Gerard, angrily, for although a good-tempered fellow he had
all the average young Englishman's objection to being bullied or crow