so many other heart-broken men have done. He went into
the woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pension
to live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as you
will find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's old
Young at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them.
They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie.'

"They say he's got cats round his place by the hundred. Spends all his
time in hunting meat and catching fish for 'em. Well, most everybody is
cranky about some notion or others, whether it's in the city or in the
woods, and I reckon that Josh has a right to keep cats if he wants to.
No one ever sees him out in civilization now. Cynthy's in the asylum.
Most people think it's just the trouble of the thing preying on her
mind. And then again, I guess that Gid wasn't ever any too good to her.
Hard case, ain't it, Mr. Parker?" The postmaster's voice trembled.

"It's as sad a story--as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to,
Mr. Dodge," replied the young man, passionately. "I cannot understand
how a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamp
roughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It is
small wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. He
needs a lesson."

"There's no doubt about his needin' the lesson," replied the postmaster.
"But for years half the wages that are paid out in this section have
come through the hands of Gideon Ward. Laboring men with families to
support and the traders have to stand in with him or be side-tracked. I
don't know as Gid ever did a real up-and-down crime, any more than what
I've been telling you--and some men in the world would be mean enough to
gloss all that over, saying that it's only right to look out for number
one first of all. But I tell ye honestly, Mr. Parker, Gid would have to
do something pretty desperate and open to have the prosecuting officers
of this county take it up against him. Now you can understand the width
of the swath he cuts in these parts. Where would the witnesses come
from? He owns his men, body and soul."

Parker's forehead wrinkled doubtfully.

"What do you think will be his next move in regard to me?"

"I can't make a guess, but you need smellers as long as a bobcat's and
as many eyes as a spider." With this cheering opinion expressed, the
postmaster went away.

There was no more work for Parker on his plans that