eeply distressed
by the bitterness of feeling displayed. "There is no getting to the man.
He will listen to no one."

At one time I thought of going over and talking with Old Toombs myself,
for it seemed that I had been able to get nearer to him than any one
had in a long time. But I dreaded it. I kept dallying--for what, indeed,
could I have said to him? If he had been suspicious of me before,
how much more hostile he might be when I expressed an interest in his
difficulties. As to reaching the Swan Hill settlers, they were now
aroused to an implacable state of bitterness; and they had the people of
the whole community with them, for no one liked Old Toombs.

Thus while I hesitated time passed and my next meeting with Old Toombs,
instead of being premeditated, came about quite unexpectedly. I was
walking in the town road late one afternoon when I heard a wagon
rattling behind me, and then, quite suddenly, a shouted, "Whoa."

Looking around, I saw Old Toombs, his great solid figure mounted high
on the wagon seat, the reins held fast in the fingers of one hand. I was
struck by the strange expression in his face--a sort of grim exaltation.
As I stepped aside he burst out in a loud, shrill, cackling laugh:

"He-he-he--he-he-he--"

I was too astonished to speak at once. Ordinarily when I meet any one in
the town road it is in my heart to cry out to him,

"Good morning, friend," or, "How are you, brother?" but I had no such
prompting that day.

"Git in, Grayson," he said; "git in, git in."

I climbed up beside him, and he slapped me on the knee with another
burst of shrill laughter.

"They thought they had the old man," he said, starting up his horses.
"They thought there weren't no law left in Israel. I showed 'em."

I cannot convey the bitter triumphancy of his voice.

"You mean the road case?" I asked.

"Road case!" he exploded, "they wan't no road case; they didn't have no
road case. I beat 'em. I says to 'em, 'What right hev any o' you on
my property? Go round with you,' I says. Oh, I beat 'em. If they'd had
their way, they'd 'a' cut through my hedge--the hounds!"

When he set me down at my door, I had said hardly a word. There seemed
nothing that could be said. I remember I stood for some time watching
the old man as he rode away, his wagon jolting in the country road,
his stout figure perched firmly in the seat. I went in with a sense of
heaviness at the heart.

"Harriet," I said, "there are some th