orse's foot, wiped it on his apron,
and tried the shoe with his fingers. Then he took a pair of pincers out
of his box, and catching one half of the broken shoe, gave it a wrench.

I turned on him in astonishment. "Stop," I cried, "you will tear the
hoof."

"It'll pull loose," he mumbled.

Ump was at the door, tying the Bay Eagle. He came in when he heard me.
"Christian," he said, "cut them nails."

The blacksmith looked up at him. "Who's shoein' this horse?" he growled.

The eyes of the hunchback began to snap. "You're a-doin' it," he said,
"an' I'm tellin' you how."

"If I'm a doin' it," growled the blacksmith, "suppose you go to hell."
And he gave the shoe another wrench.

I was on him in a moment, and he threw me off so that I fell across the
shop against a pile of horseshoes. The hunchback caught up a sledge that
lay by the door and threw it. Old Christian was on one knee. He dodged
under the horse and held up the kit to ward off the blow. The iron nose
of the sledge struck the box and crushed it like a shell, and, passing
on, bounded off the steel anvil with a bang.

The blacksmith sprang out as the horse jumped, seized the hammer and
darted at Ump. I saw the hunchback look around for a weapon. There was
none, but he never moved. The next moment his head would have burst like
a cracked nut, but in that moment a shadow loomed in the shop door.
There was a mad rush like the sudden swoop of some tremendous hawk. The
blacksmith was swept off his feet, carried across the shop, and
flattened against the chimney of his forge. I looked on, half dazed by
the swiftness of the thing. I did not see that it was Jud until old
Christian was gasping under the falling mortar of his chimney, his feet
dangling and his sooty throat caught in the giant's fingers, that looked
like squeezing iron bolts. The staring eyes of the old man were glassy,
his face was beginning to get black, his mouth opened, and his extended
bare arm holding the hammer began to come slowly down.

It rested a moment on the giant's shoulder, then it bent at the elbow,
the fingers loosed, and the hammer fell. Old Christian will never be
nearer to the pit of his imperial master until he stumbles over its rim.

The hunchback glided by me and clapped his hand on Jud's shoulder. "Drop
him," he cried.

The blood of the giant was booming. The desperate savage, passed
sleeping from his father and his father's father, had awaked, and awaked
to kill. I could