ds, yelling like a catamount"--he returned to this of set
purpose, because it evidently bit--"I thought it was queer, that's all.
Thought you were out of your head. But it got to be too much of a good
thing. And it's one thing to make yourself a laughing-stock. It's
another to be indicted for murder."

"I don't," said Tenney, "stan' any man's interferin' with me. I give ye
fair warnin' not to meddle nor make."

"Then," said Raven, "we've both got our warning. I've had yours and
you've had mine. You're a mighty mean man, Tenney. A mean cuss, that's
what you are."

Tenney, in the surprise and mortification of this, barked out at him:

"Don't ye call me a cuss. I'm a professin' Christian."

"Stuff!" said Raven. "That's all talk. I wonder a man of your sense
shouldn't see how ridiculous it is. You're not a Christian. When you
stand up in meeting and testify, you're simply a hypocrite. No, I don't
call you a Christian. I call you a scamp, on the way to being locked
up."

Tenney's mind leaped back a space.

"You're tryin' to throw me off the track," he announced. "Ye can't do
it. When I come up the road you an' Eugene Martin was out there an' you
knocked him down. I see ye. You horsewhipped him. Now if it's anybody's
business to horsewhip Eugene Martin, it's mine. What business is it o'
yourn horsewhippin' a man that's hangin' round another man's wife
unless----"

"Hold on there," said Raven. "I gave him his medicine because he was too
fresh." Here he allowed himself a salutary instant of swagger. Tenney
might as well think him a devil of a fellow, quick to act and hard to
hold. "It happens to be my way. I don't propose taking back talk from
anybody of his sort--or yours. He's a mean cuss, too, Tenney, ready to
think every man's as bad as he is--a foul-mouthed fool. And"--he
hesitated here and spoke with an emphasis that did strike upon Tenney's
hostile attention--"he is the kind of cheap fellow that would like
nothing better than to insult a woman. That was what he sat down by your
wife for, last night. That was why I made an excuse to get him away from
her. I wouldn't allow him within ten feet of a woman of my own family.
You ought to be mighty glad I looked out for yours."

Tenney was in a coil of doubt. Suddenly he glanced round at Tira,
standing there in the path, her eyes upon one and the other as they
spoke. Raven would not willingly have looked at her. He felt her
presence in his inmost heart; he knew how c