Coniston was the first to tremble, as though the forces stretching
themselves in the tannery house were shaking the very ground, and the
name of Jethro Bass took on once more, as by magic, a terrible meaning.
When Vesuvius is silent, pygmies may make faces on the very lip of the
crater, and they on the slopes forget the black terror of the fiery
hail. Jake Wheeler himself, loyal as he was, did not care to look into
the crater now that he was summoned; but a force pulled him all the way
to the tannery house. He left behind him an awe-stricken gathering at
the store, composed of inhabitants who had recently spoken slightingly
of the volcano.

We are getting a little mixed in our metaphors between lions and dragons
and volcanoes, and yet none of them are too strong to represent Jethro
Bass when he heard that Isaac Worthington had had the teacher dismissed
from Brampton lower school. He did not stop to reason then that action
might distress her. The beast in him awoke again; the desire for
vengeance on a man whom he had hated most of his life, and who now had
dared to cause pain to the woman whom he loved with all his soul, and
even idolize, was too great to resist. He had no thought of resisting
it, for the waters of it swept over his soul like the Atlantic over a
lost continent. He would crush Isaac Worthington if it took the last
breath from his body.

Jake went to the tannery house and received his orders--orders of which
he made a great mystery afterward at the store, although they consisted
simply of directions to be prepared to drive Jethro to Brampton the next
morning. But the look of the man had frightened Jake. He had never seen
vengeance so indelibly written on that face, and he had never before
realized the terrible power of vengeance. Mr. Wheeler returned from that
meeting in such a state of trepidation that he found it necessary to
accompany Rias to a certain keg in the cellar; after which he found his
tongue. His description of Jethro's appearance awed his hearers, and
Jake declared that he would not be in Isaac Worthington's shoes for all
of Isaac Worthington's money. There were others right here in Coniston,
Jake hinted, who might now find it convenient to emigrate to the far
West.

Jethro's face had not changed when Jake drove him out of Coniston the
next morning. Good Mr. Satterlee saw it, and felt that the visit he had
wished to make would have been useless; Mr. Amos Cuthbert and Mr. Sam
Price saw