on you are up against."

"I shall keep on attending to my business," Parker replied. "If any one
interferes with that business, he'll do so at his own risk."

"I am afraid you are depending too much on your legal rights and on the
protection of the law. Now Gideon Ward has always made might right in
this section. He is rough and ignorant, but the old scamp has a heap of
money and a rich gang to back him. I tell you, there are a lot of things
he can do to you, and then escape by using his money and his pull."

"From what I have seen of the old man's temper, I am prepared to put
a pretty high estimate on his capacity for mischief; but on the other
hand, Mr. Attorney, suppose I should go back to my people and say I
allowed an old native up here in the woods to back me off our property?
I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. system would get a
blacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist under
my nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch to
browbeat and tyrannize over them without a word of protest?"

"Oh, he has been whaled once or twice, but it never did him any good.
For instance, a favorite trick of his is to make every one flounder out
of a tote-road into the deep snow. He won't turn out an inch. Most of
the men he meets are working for him or selling him goods, and they
don't dare to complain. However, one teamster he crowded off in that
way broke two ox-goads on the old man. But that whipping only set him
against other travellers more than ever.

"Another time Ward got what he deserved down at Sunkhaze. A man opened a
store there and put in a plate-glass window, being anxious to show a bit
of progress. There's nothing old Ward hates so much as he does what he
calls 'slingin' on airs,' When he drove down from the woods and saw
that new window he growled, 'Wal, it seems to me we're gettin' blamed
high-toned all of a sudden!' He got out, rooted up a big rock and hove
it right through the middle of that new pane of glass the only pane of
plate glass Sunkhaze ever saw. Well, the storeman tore out and licked
Ward till he cried. Storeman didn't know who the old man was till after
it was all over. Neither did old Gid know how big that storeman was till
he saw him coming out through that broken glass. Otherwise both might
have thought twice.

"Ward boycotted and persecuted him till he had to sell out and leave
town. He has persecuted everybody. His wife has been in the i