r letter from Annie
Laurie?"

"Aw, go an' choke yourself! No, siree. It'd be more like it if I was
weepin' instead o' singin'. I bet you'd have been, if you'd heard the
news I did to-day. Who d'ye suppose is to be your next-door neighbor?"

"I don't know."

"Satan Symonds--no less!"

John McIntyre's fine, gentle face expressed only surprised interest.
"Well, let him come. He won't eat us."

"Won't he, though?" cried the young wagoner, vigorously. "He's got his
eye on your farm, John McIntyre; yes, and one claw, don't forget that!
I'd rather have the devil himself runnin' the next farm to me."

The man in the field leaned his bare, brown arms on the top of the
fence-rails and surveyed his friend with an indulgent smile.

"I'm afraid he's closer than that to most of us already, Martin," he
said, shaking his head. "Don't you worry about Joe Symonds. Why, we
were boys at school together. There's no harm in him."

The younger man looked at his friend with mingled admiration and
impatience in his eyes. "Lookee here, John, you're far too easy. You
take a warning in time, and don't let that sneak get his claws any
further into your wool than you can help. I'd shut off every bit of
dealings with him. He's as sharp as a weasel. Don't you forget that
he's got a hold on you already."

"Tuts! That's nothing. I'll pay that next fall, if the crops turn out
only half as well as they look now."

The other shook his head. "John McIntyre," he said, with affectionate
severity, "you're too honest for this world. Symonds belongs to a
crooked stock. His father before him was crooked, and his grandfather
was crookeder, and he's the crookedest o' the whole bunch. I--I"--he
hesitated, boyishly--"I hate to go away thinkin' he's livin' next farm
to you--that's all."

"Well, then, why don't you rent the River Farm yourself," said John
McIntyre, banteringly, "instead of running off West like this? You and
that little Ontario girl would run things just fine down there, and
show Mary and me how to do it right."

A warm flush mingled with the tan on the younger man's cheek. "Maybe
we will, some day," he said, with a wistful note in his voice, "but
I'll have to wait till that kid is on his own feet. That won't be
long, either. I bet he'll plank down all the money I've lent him
before he's through college. And then I'll come scootin' home, an'
there'll be a lot o' things happen all at once, 'round about that date."