is face hardened.

"There's grown to be more to it lately than the hen end. Have you
heard that sence Bat Reeves got let down by she that was Widder
Snell"--he nodded toward the house--"he has been sort of caught on
the bounce, as ye might say, by the Widder Pike? Well, bein' her close
neighbor, I know it's so. And, furdermore, the widder's told my wife,
bein' so tickled over ketchin' him that she couldn't hold it to
herself. Now, for the last week, every time that old red-gilled
dirt-walloper has led them hens into my garden, I've caught Bat
Reeves peekin' around the corner of the widder's house watchin' 'em.
If there's any such thing as a man bein' able to talk human language
to a rooster, and put sin and Satan into him, Reeves is doin' it.
But what's the good of my goin' and lickin' him? It'll mean law.
That's what he's lookin' for--and him with that old gandershanked
lawyer for a brother! See what they done to you!"

Hiram's eyes grew hard, and he muttered irefully. For cuffing Batson
Reeves off the Widow Snell's door-step he had paid a fat fine,
assessed for the benefit of the assaulted, along with liberal costs
allowed to Squire Alcander Reeves.

"They can't get any of my money that way," pursued the Cap'n. "I'd
pay suthin' for the privilege of drawin' and quarterin' him, but a
plain lickin' ain't much object. A lickin' does him good."

"And it's so much ready money for that skunk," added the showman.
He cocked his head to one side to avoid his cigar smoke, and stared
down on P.T. pecking the last scraps of raw liver from the saucer.

"I understand you to say, do I," resumed Hiram, "that he is shooing
them hens--or, at least, condonin' their comin' down into your garden
ev'ry day?"

"I run full half a mile jest before I came acrost to see you, chasin'
'em out," said the Cap'n, gloomily, "and I'll bet they was back in
there before I got to the first bars on my way over here."

P.T., feeling the stimulus of the liver, crooked his neck and crowed
spiritedly. Then he scratched the side of his head with one toe, shook
himself, and squatted down contentedly in the sun.

"In the show business," said Hiram, "when I found a feller with a
game that I could play better 'n him, I was always willin' to play
his game." He stuck up his hand with the fingers spread like a fan,
and began to check items. "A gun won't do, because it's a widder's
hens; a fight won't do, because it's Bat Reeves; law won't do, because
he's go