silent for a moment and slowly his brow drew into a black
scowl.

"I reckon, Bud, one reason air this," he said bitterly, "thet I'm
accounted ter be a drunkard my own self an' like as not, one sich
reason es thet air plenty."

Turner glanced up to the bristling ridge which he must climb. Already
the west was kindling into a flare of richness and the skyline hills
were dyed with ashy purple.

"I've done over-tarried," he said abruptly, as he lifted his sack from
the floor, but his face wore a glow which was not altogether from the
sinking sun. "I reckon I'd better be on my way--but I hain't denyin'
thet I've done hed thoughts like your'n myself, Bud."

But young Stacy had not gone far when that sense of intensified
woodcraft which Blossom had derided caused him to halt dead in his
tracks.

The sound that had first arrested him had been nothing more than a
laugh, but, in it, he had recognized a quality that bespoke derisive
hostility and a thickness that indicated drink.

He had left the place empty except for Old Bud Jason and no one could
have reached it, unannounced by normal sounds, so soon unless the
approach had been achieved by stealth.

Bear Cat Stacy put down his sack and worked his way back, holding the
concealment of rock and laurel; guarding each footfall against the
betrayal of a broken twig--and, as yet, denied a view of the tub-mill.
But his cars were open and doing duty for his eyes.

"Wa'al," came the miller's voice in a wrathful tremolo, "what business
brings ye hyar es ef ye war aimin' ter lay-way somebody? Folks
gin'rally comes hither upstandin'--an' open."

This time the voice of the new arrival was sneeringly truculent:

"Does they come thet-a-way when they fotches in sprouted corn thet they
dastn't take elsewhere?"

Bear Cat stiffened as he recognized the voice of Ratler Webb, whom he
had not met since their encounter in which a nose had been broken. He
knew that in the breast of this man, hitherto unchallenged as
neighborhood bully, an ugly and dangerous grudge was festering.

Now it seemed that the old miller, because of friendship for the Stacys
was to be heckled, and Bear Cat's wrath boiled. He heard Bud Jason
inquiring in tones no longer querulous but firmly indignant:

"Is thet all ye come fer? Ter blackguard me?"

Ratler answered in a voice savoring more of highwayman's coercion than
request.

"I was jest a-funnin' with ye, Old Bud, but I'd be mighty obleeged ter
ye fer a