hief,' says he. 'Whack,' says I, with my
stick across his head, upholding the dignity of the court. 'Biff,'
says he, with a brick that was handy, more and more contemptuous. 'You
dirty, mangy cur,' says I, grabbing him by the ears and pounding his
head against the wall as I spoke, hoping to get some idea of the
dignity of the court into his rebellious head. 'Whoop,' says he, and,
as he tore my coat, 'Yip yip,' says I, and may it please the court it
was shortly thereafter that the real trouble started, though I
misremember just how at this time." And as there were three "E"
Company men on the jury, they acquitted Dolan and advised the court to
assess a fine on the prosecuting witness for contributory negligence
in resisting an officer.

But the coat--the blue coat with brass buttons, with the straps of a
lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended and even in that same summer
did active service many times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore
Ridge, and holidays came faster than the months. When the supreme
court decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the building of the
court-house, in favour of Syeamore Ridge, there was another holiday,
and men drew John Barclay around in the new hack with the top down,
and there were fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay's
lawsuit. Lige Bemis, who was county attorney, did not try to claim
credit for the work, and when the last acre of the great wheat crop of
the Golden Belt Wheat Company was cut, and threshed, there was a big
celebration and the elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was
formally turned over to the company, and John Barclay was the hero of
another happy occasion. For the elevator, standing on a switch by the
railroad track, was his "proposition." And every one in town knew that
the railroad company had made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his
associates, so low that Minneola could not compete, even if she hauled
her wheat to another station on the road, so Minneola teams lined up
at Barclay's elevator. That autumn Minneola, without a railroad,
without a chance for the county-seat, and without a grain market,
began to fag, and during the last of September, the Mason House came
moving out over the hill road, from Minneola to Sycamore Ridge,
surrounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from the Ridge. Every
evening, of the two weeks in which the house was moving, people drove
out from Sycamore Ridge to see it, and Lycurgus Mason, sitting on the
back step sm