n of Gourlay's horses
champed idly in their stalls.

Barbie had a weekly market now, and, as it happened, that was the day it
fell on. At two in the afternoon Gourlay was standing on the gravel
outside the Red Lion, trying to look wise over a sample of grain which a
farmer had poured upon his great palm. Gibson approached with false
voice and smile.

"Gosh, Mr. Gourlay!" he cried protestingly, "have ye forgotten whatna
day it is? Ye havena gi'en my men a ton o' stuff to gang on wi'."

To the farmer's dismay his fine sample of grain was scattered on the
gravel by a convulsive movement of Gourlay's arm. As Gourlay turned on
his enemy, his face was frightfully distorted; all his brow seemed
gathered in a knot above his nose, and he gaped on his words, yet ground
them out like a labouring mill, each word solid as plug shot.

"I'll see Wil-son ... and Gib-son ... and every other man's son ...
frying in hell," he said slowly, "ere a horse o' mine draws a stane o'
Wilson's property. Be damned to ye, but there's your answer!"

Gibson's cunning deserted him for once. He put his hand on Gourlay's
shoulder in pretended friendly remonstrance.

"Take your hand off my shouther!" said Gourlay, in a voice the tense
quietness of which should have warned Gibson to forbear.

But he actually shook Gourlay with a feigned playfulness.

Next instant he was high in air; for a moment the hobnails in the soles
of his boots gleamed vivid to the sun; then Gourlay sent him flying
through the big window of the Red Lion, right on to the middle of the
great table where the market-folk were drinking.

For a minute he lay stunned and bleeding among the broken crockery, in a
circle of white faces and startled cries.

Gourlay's face appeared at the jagged rent, his eyes narrowed to
fiercely gleaming points, a hard, triumphant devilry playing round his
black lips. "You damned treacherous rat!" he cried, "that's the game
John Gourlay can play wi' a thing like you."

Gibson rose from the ruin on the table and came bleeding to the window,
his grin a _rictus_ of wrath, his green teeth wolfish with anger.

"By God, Gourlay," he screamed, "I'll make you pay for this; I'll fight
you through a' the law courts in Breetain, but you'll implement your
bond."

"Damn you for a measled swine! would you grunt at me?" cried Gourlay,
and made to go at him through the window. Though he could not reach him,
Gibson quailed at his look. He shook his fist in impot