ivial as well as the potent.

"Tell me something, Japhe," he said, changing front in the twinkling of
an eye. "Is Nan coming back to the dog-keeper's cabin when the family
leaves the hotel?"

"'Tain't goin' to make any difference to you if she does," said
Pettigrass, wondering where he was to be hit next.

"It may, if you'll do me a favor. You'll be where you can see and hear.
I want to know who visits her--besides Miss Ardea."

Brother Japheth's smile was more severe than the sharpest reproach.

"Still a-harpin' on that old string, are ye? Say, Tom-Jeff, I been
erbout the best friend you've had, barrin' your daddy, for a right smart
spell o' years. Don't you keep on tryin' to th'ow dust in my eyes."

"Call it what you please; I don't care what you think or say. But when
you find a man hanging around Nan--"

"They's one right now," said the horse-trader casually.

Tom reined up as if he would ride back to Pine Knob forthwith.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

"Young fellow named Kincaid--jest back f'om out West, somewheres.
Brother Bill Layne let on to me like maybe he'd overlook what cayn't be
he'ped, and marry Nan anyhow. And that's another reason you got to keep
away."

"Let up on that," said Tom, stiffening again. "If you had been where you
could have used your ears as you did your eyes back yonder at Pine Knob,
you'd know more than you seem to know now."

There was silence between them from this on until the horses were
footing it cautiously down the bridle-path connecting the cart track
with the Paradise pike. Then Pettigrass said:

"Allowin' ther' might be another man, Tom-Jeff, jest for the sake of
argyment, what-all was you aimin' to do if you found him?"

It was drawing on to dusk, and the electric lights of Mountain View
Avenue and the colonial houses were twinkling starlike in the blue-gray
haze of the valley. They had reach the junction of the steep bridle-path
with the wood road which edged the Dabney horse pasture and led directly
to the Deer Trace paddocks, and when Japheth pulled his horse aside into
the short cut, Tom drew rein to answer.

"It's nobody's business but mine, Japhe; but I'd just as soon tell you:
it runs in my head that he needs killing mighty badly, and I've thought
about it till I've come to the conclusion that I'm the appointed
instrument. You turn off here? Well, so long."

Brother Japheth made the gesture of leave-taking with his riding-switch,
and sent his mount at an e