sh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. He
hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath
set me in dark places as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me
about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.'"

Flagg halted and looked up from the page. "Lamentations--lamentations,
Dick! The best of 'em have whined when the smash came. It's human nature
to let out a holler. Jeremiah did it. I'm in good company; it ain't
crying baby; it's putting up a real man holler. It's----"

Latisan stepped through the doorway.

Flagg instantly grabbed at a wooden spill that made a marker in the
volume and nipped back the pages. He shook aloft his clinched left hand.
He raised his voice and boomed. "'And if any mischief follow, then thou
shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for
stripe.'"

Flagg beat his knotted fist on the open page. "Do you hear that,
Latisan? That's for you. I hunted it up. I haven't had time till now to
read the Bible like I should. Plenty of good stuff in it--but in the Old
Testament, mind you! Too much turn-your-cheek stuff in the New
Testament. 'Eye for an eye.' Do you know who said that?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry to admit it, but----"

"God Almighty said it. Said it to Moses on the mount. First
straight-arm orders from God to man. It ought to be good enough for you
and me, hadn't it? Take it for rule o' conduct, and if Rufe Craig says
anything to you on the drive refer him here--to headquarters!" Again he
beat his fist on the page.

"I don't know what part of the Bible Craig ought to study, sir, but some
of it ought to be good for him. I'm just from the train. They wouldn't
load our dynamite at the junction. Craig is behind that!"

"Wouldn't haul our dynamite?" raged Flagg. "And he has been shipping his
canned thunder through here for Skulltree by the carload! Latisan,
you're falling down on the job. When I, myself, was attending to it, my
dynamite was loaded for Adonia all right enough!"

The drive master did not reply to that amazing shifting of blame to him.

"Did you say what ought to be said to that conductor?"

"When I started to say something he bawled me out for using that kind of
language on railroad property."

Flagg lifted the useless right hand with his left, let it fall again,
and groaned. "How many times, and where, did you hit him? And then w