e, and they can say behind my back,
'There's old Thornton--a gone-by. Got licked in his district!' When they
can say that, Luke, life won't be worth living, not if I've got
thousand-dollar bills enough to wad a forty-foot driving-crew quilt!"

CHAPTER VII

WITH THE KAVANAGH AT HOME

When Harlan Thornton rode away out of the yard of the town house he was
the bitterest rebel in the Duke's dominions. But he realized fully the
futility of standing there in public and wrangling with his grandfather.

He understood pretty well the ambitious motive his grandfather had in
forcing his will; Thelismer Thornton had urged the matter in the past.
It had been the only question in dispute between them. And the young man
had never resented the urgings. He appreciated what his grandfather
hoped to accomplish for the only one who bore his name. But this
high-handed attempt to shanghai him into politics outraged his
independence. His protests had been unheeded. The old man had not even
granted him an interview in private, where he could plead his own case.
In business matters they had been co-workers, intimate on the level of
partnership, with the grandfather asking for and obeying the suggestions
the grandson made. On a sudden Harlan felt that he hardly knew this old
man, who had shown himself contemptuous, harsh, and domineering. And
then he thought of the girl who had been so grievously insulted in his
presence, and he rode to find her.

His way took him across the long bridge that spanned the river. The
river marked the boundary-line of his country. After that day's taste of
the politics of his native land he felt a queer sense of relief when he
found himself on foreign soil.

Beyond the little church and its burying-ground, with the tall cross in
its centre, the road led up the river hill to the edge of the forest.
Here was set Dennis Kavanagh's house, its back to the black growth,
staring sullenly with its little windows out across the cleared farms of
the river valley.

To one who knew Kavanagh it seemed to typify his attitude toward the
world. He had seen other men clutching and grabbing. He had clutched and
grabbed with the best of them. When one deals with squatter claims, tax
titles, forgotten land grants and other complications that tie up the
public domain, it often happens that the man who waits for the right to
prevail finds the more unscrupulous and impetuous rival in possession,
and claiming rather more th