t River,
that it made me wish the old woman was here to see it."

Still coloring, the master cast a rapid, sidelong glance at McKinstry's
dark red face and beard, but in the slow satisfaction of his features
there was no trace of that irony which the master's self-consciousness
knew.

"Then your wife is not here?" said Mr. Ford abstractedly.

"She war at church. She reckoned that I'd do to look arter Cressy--she
bein', so to speak, under conviction. D'ye mind walkin' this way a bit;
I want to speak a word with ye?" He put his maimed hand through the
master's arm, after his former fashion, and led him to a corner.

"Did ye happen to see Seth Davis about yer?"

"I believe I saw him a moment ago," returned Mr. Ford half
contemptuously.

"Did he get off anythin' rough on ye?"

"Certainly not," said the master haughtily. "Why should he dare?"

"That's so," said McKinstry meditatively. "You had better keep right on
in that line. That's your gait, remember. Leave him--or his father--it's
the same thing--to ME. Don't YOU let yourself be roped in to this yer
row betwixt me and the Davises. You ain't got no call to do it. It's
already been on my mind your bringin' that gun to me in the Harrison
row. The old woman hadn't oughter let you--nor Cress either. Hark to me,
Mr. Ford! I reckon to stand between you and both the Davises till the
cows come home--only--mind YOU give him the go-by when he happens to
meander along towards you."

"I'm very much obliged to you," said Ford with disproportionately
sudden choler; "but I don't propose to alter my habits for a ridiculous
school-boy whom I have dismissed." The unjust and boyish petulance of
his speech instantly flashed upon him, and he felt his cheek burn again.

McKinstry regarded him with dull, red, slumbrous eyes. "Don't you go to
lose your best holt, Mr. Ford--and that's kam. Keep your kam--and you've
allus got the dead wood on Injin Springs. I ain't got it," he continued,
in his slowest, most passionless manner, "and a row more or less ain't
much account to me--but YOU, you keep your kam." He paused, stepped
back, and regarding the master, with a slight wave of his crippled hand
over his whole person, as if indicating some personal adornment, said,
"It sets you off!"

He nodded, turned, and re-entered the ball-room. Mr. Ford, without
trusting himself to further speech, elbowed his way through the crowded
staircase to the street. But even there his strange anger, as we