know my views there is an end of it."

He was wrong in this. The end which I think must have proved very
different from what he could have expected had not yet come. He had taken
the wrong way, for those whom he addressed were like himself mettlesome
Englishmen of the ruling caste, and while they had long paid him due
respect they were not to be trampled on. They stood fast, and losing his
temper he turned to them in a sudden outbreak of fury.

"Why don't you go?" he thundered, and pointed to the saws and axes. "Take
those--things along with you."

None of them moved except Lyle who stepped forward a pace or two.

"There is a little more to be said, sir. You have refused your sanction,
but bearing in mind a clause or two in the charter of the settlement I'm
not quite sure it's necessary. In one sense Green Mountain is not exactly
yours."

"Not mine!" and Carrington stared at him in incredulous astonishment. Then
he seemed to recover himself and smiled in an unpleasant fashion. "Ah," he
said, "you have been reading the charter, but there are several points
that evidently you have missed. For one thing, it vests practically
complete authority in me, and my decision as to any changes or the
disposal of any of the Carrington land can only be questioned by a
three-fourths majority of a general assembly. I have not heard that you
have submitted the matter to such a meeting."

"I have not done so, sir," answered Lyle.

There was, I thought, still a faint chance of a compromise, but Carrington
flung it away.

"Then," he said, "I choose to exert my authority, and I think that I have
already told you to leave Green Mountain."

Lyle apparently recognized that the Colonel had the best of it on what one
might call a point of law, but the way the latter used the word "told"
would, I think, have stirred most men to resistance. It was far more
expressive than if he had said commanded. Lyle stood quite still a moment
or two looking at the Colonel with wrinkled brows.

"If you will listen to me for a few minutes, sir," he said at length.

"No!" interrupted Carrington. "It would be a waste of time. You know my
views. There is nothing more to be said."

Then he committed the crowning act of folly as tightening his grasp on his
bridle he turned to the lads behind him.

"Drive them off!" he said.

The half-contemptuous command was almost insufferably galling. Carrington
might have been dealing with mutinous dusky troopers in