you killed him," she said, coming near, looking down on
Mackenzie with full commendation; "he keeps his crazy wife chained up
like a dog!"

"I don't think he's dead, but I'd like to know for sure," Mackenzie
returned, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground.

"Nobody will ever say a word to you if you did kill him," Joan
assured. "They'd all know he started it--he fusses with everybody."

She sat on the ground near him, Charley posting himself a little in
front, where he could admire and wonder over the might of a man who
could break Swan Carlson's hold upon his throat and leave his house
alive. Before them the long valley widened as it reached away, the
sheep a dusty brown splotch in it, spread at their grazing, the sound
of the lambs' wailing rising clear in the pastoral silence.

"I stopped at Carlson's house after dark last night," Mackenzie
explained, seeing that such explanation must be made, "and turned his
wife loose. Carlson resented it when he came home. He said I'd have to
fight him. But you're wrong when you believe what Carlson says about
that woman; she isn't crazy, and never was."

That seemed to be all the story, from the way he hastened it, and
turned away from the vital point of interest. Joan touched his arm as
he sat smoking, his speculative gaze on the sheep, his brows drawn as
if in troubled thought.

"What did you do when he said you had to fight him?" she inquired, her
breath coming fast, her cheeks glowing.

Mackenzie laughed shortly. "Why, I tried to get away," he said.

"Why didn't you, before he got his hands on you?" Charley wanted to
know.

"Charley!" said Joan.

"Carlson locked the door before I could get out." Mackenzie nodded to
the boy, very gravely, as one man to another. Charley laughed.

"You didn't tear up no boards off the floor tryin' to git away!" said
he.

Joan smiled; that seemed to express her opinion of it, also. She
admired the schoolmaster's modest reluctance when he gave them a bare
outline of what followed, shuddering when he laughed over Mrs.
Carlson's defense of her husband with the ax.

"Gee!" said Charley, "I hope dad'll give you a job."

"But how did you get out of there?" Joan asked.

"I took an unfair advantage of Swan and hit him with a table leg."

"Gee! dad's _got_ to give you a job," said Charley; "I'll make him."

"I'll hold you to that, Charley," Mackenzie laughed.

In the boy's eyes Mackenzie was already a hero, greater than any man