't goin' t' say nothin' t' me, an' if he
did, words don't break no bones. I'm a heap th' best man in this
neck o' th' woods, an' your Paw knows hit. You know it, too."

Under his look, the blood rushed to the girl's face in a burning
blush. In spite of her anger she dropped her eyes, and, without
attempting a reply, turned to her work.

A moment later, Mr. Lane entered the room; a single glance at his
daughter's face, a quick look at Wash Gibbs, as the bully sat
following with wolfish eyes every movement of the girl, and Jim
stepped quietly in front of his guest. At the same moment, Sammy
left the house for a bucket of water, and Wash turned toward his
host with a start to find the dark faced man gazing at him with a
look that few men could face with composure. Without a word, Jim's
right hand crept stealthily inside his hickory shirt, where a
button was missing.

For a moment Gibbs tried to return the look. He failed. Something
he read in the dark face before him--some meaning light in those
black eyes--made him tremble and he felt, rather than saw, Jim's
hand resting quietly now inside the hickory shirt near his left
arm pit. The big man's face went white beneath the tan, his eyes
wavered and shifted, he hung his head and shuffled his feet
uneasily, like an overgrown school-boy brought sharply to task by
the master.

Then Jim, his hand still inside his shirt, drawled, softly, but
with a queer metallic ring in his voice, "Do you reckon it's a
goin' t' storm again?"

At the commonplace question, the bully drew a long breath and
looked around. "We might have a spell o' weather," he muttered;
"but I don't guess it'll be t'night."

Then Sammy returned and they had supper.

Next to his daughter, Jim Lane loved his violin, and with good
reason, for the instrument had once belonged to his great-
grandfather, who, tradition says, was a musician of no mean
ability.

Preachin' Bill "'lowed there was a heap o' difference between a
playin' a violin an' jest fiddlin'. You wouldn't know some fellers
was a makin' music, if you didn't see 'em a pattin' their foot;
but hit ain't that a way with Jim Lane. He sure do make music,
real music." As no one ever questioned Bill's judgment, it is safe
to conclude that Mr. Lane inherited something of his great-
grandfather's ability; along with his treasured instrument.

When supper was over, and Wash Gibbs had gone on his way; Jim took
the violin from its peg above the fireplace,