er. He thinks we'd
better talk the matter over quietly. And he wants to see the option,
too."

"Oh, Hiram! There ain't no hope, is there?" groaned the old lady.

"Well, I tell you what!" exclaimed the young fellow, "we won't give in
to him until we have to. Of course, if you refuse to sign a deed he
can go to chancery and in the end you will have to pay the costs of the
action.

"But perhaps, even at that, it might be well to hold him off until you
have got the present crop out of the ground."

"Oh, I won't go to law," said Mrs. Atterson, decidedly. "No good ever
come of that."

After a time Mr. Strickland invited them both into his private office.
The attorney spoke quietly of other matters while they waited for
Pepper.

But the real estate man did not appear. By and by Mr. Strickland's clerk
came back with the report that Pepper had been called away suddenly on
important business.

"They tell me he went Saturday," said the clerk. "He may not be back
for a week. But he said he was going to buy the Atterson place when he
returned--he's told several people around town so."

"Ah!" said Mr. Strickland, slowly. "Then he has left that threat
hanging, like the Sword of Damocles--over Mrs. Atterson's head?"

"I don't know nothin' about that sword, Mr. Strickland, nor no
other sword, 'cept a rusty one that my father carried when he was a
hoss-sodger in the Rebellion," declared Mother Atterson, nervously. "But
if that Pepper man's got one belonging to Mr. Damocles, I shouldn't be
at all surprised. That Pepper looked to me like a man that would take
anything he could lay his hands on--if he warn't watched!"

"Which is a true and just interpretation of Pepper's character, I
believe," observed the lawyer, smiling.

"And we've got to give up the farm at his say-so--at any time?" demanded
the old lady.

"If his option is good," said Mr. Strickland. "But I want to see the
paper--and I can assure you, Mrs. Atterson, that I shall subject it to
the closest possible scrutiny.

"There is a possibility that Pepper's option may be questioned before
the courts. Do not build too many hopes on this," he added, quickly,
seeing the old lady's face light up.

"You have a very good champion in this young man," and the lawyer nodded
at Hiram.

"He suspected all was not right with the option and he has dug up the
fact that the witness to your uncle's signature, and the man before whom
the paper was attested, both believed the opt