wn the world."

The man had already taken his seat by the fire as unaffectedly as had
the dog. He had entered as boldly and as indifferently and his two
deep-set, cat-gray cross-eyes looked around as savagely.

He was a tall, lank fellow, past middle age, with a crop of stiff,
red-brown hair, beginning midway of his forehead, so near to an
equally shaggy and heavy splotch of eyebrows as to leave scarce a
finger's breadth between them.

He was wiry and shrewd-looking, and his two deep-set eyes seemed
always like a leopard's,--walking the cage of his face, hunting for
some crack to slip through. Furtive, sly, darting, rolling hither and
thither, never still, comprehensive, all-seeing, malicious and deadly
shrewd. These were the eyes of Jud Carpenter, and they told it all.
To this, add again that they looked in contrary directions.

As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life.

Yet in them, now and then, the twinkle of humor shone. He had a
conciliatory way with those beneath him, and he considered all the
mill hands in that class. To his superiors he was a frowning, yet
daring and even presumptuous underling.

Somewhat better dressed than the Hillites from whom he sprang was
this Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills--somewhat better dressed,
and with the air of one who had arisen above his surroundings. Yet,
withal, the common, low-born, malicious instinct was there--the
instinct which makes one of them hate the man who is better educated,
better dressed than he. All told, it might be summed up and said of
Jud Carpenter that he had all the instincts of a Hillite and all the
arrogance of a manager.

"Nobody understands that dog, Bonaparte, but me," said Carpenter
after a while--"he's to dogs what his namesake was to man. He's the
champ'un fighter of the Tennessee Valley, an' the only cross-eyed
purp in the worl', as I have often said. Like all gen'uses of course,
he's a leetle peculiar--but him and me--we understan's each other."

He pulled out some mill papers and was about to proceed to discuss
his business when Travis interrupted:

"Hold on," he said, good humoredly, "after my experience with that
cross-eyed genius of a dog, I'll need something to brace me up."

He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his cocktail at a
quaff.

Travis settled quickly to business. He took out his mill books, and
for an hour the two talked in a low tone and mechanically. The
commissary department of the mill was taken u