hours
shortened. But still there was plenty to do.

But there were the long evenings, when all the work was done, and supper
over and the lamps lit, and they sat by the big, airtight heater, and
Angus at least enjoyed the warmth the more because, well-fed and
comfortable himself, he knew that every head of his stock was also
full-bellied and contented in pen and stable and stall and shed, and the
wind might blow and the snow drift and not matter at all.

A year passed uneventfully. The ranch paid its way, though Angus could
not meet the mortgage interest. In that year Angus had grown physically.
Adam Mackay had been a strong man, and his son was beginning to show his
breed, and the results of the good plain food and open air and hard
exercise which had been his all his life.

He was yet lanky and apparently awkward, being big of bone, but long
ropes of muscle were beginning to come on his arms and thighs, and bands
and plasters of it lay on his shoulders and along his back and armored
ribs. He took pride in the strength that was coming upon him, rejoicing
in his ability to shoulder a sack of grain without effort, to lift and
set around the end of a wagon, to handle the big breaking plow at the
end of a furrow, and he was forever trying new things which called for
strength and activity. At nineteen he could, though he did not know it,
have taken the measure of any ordinary man. And about this time an
incident occurred which nearly turned out disastrously.

Angus had delivered a load of potatoes at a hotel much frequented by
lumberjacks, and, seeking its proprietor, he entered the bar. A logging
camp had broken up, and its members, paid off, were celebrating in the
good old way. As Angus approached the bar he passed between two young
men. These, with one telepathic glance, suddenly administered to the
unsuspecting youth the rite known as the "Dutch flip." Although the
humor of the "flip" is usually more apparent to perpetrators and
onlookers than to the victim, Angus merely grinned as he found himself
on his feet again, and all would have been well if, in his involuntary
parabola, his feet aforesaid had not brushed a huge tie-maker. This
tie-maker was a Swede, "bad," with a reputation as a fighter and the
genial disposition of a bear infested with porcupine quills. Also he was
partly drunk. In this condition he chose to regard the involuntary
contact of Angus' heels as a personal affront. With a ripping blasphemy
he