Jim had already started for the road in front of the mill, and Lou followed him, just as a perilously swaying lantern came to view, showing an old-fashioned carriage of the "buggy" type containing a single occupant and drawn by a horse which was streaked with lather. The light wagon hit the bridge with a bounce which almost sent it careening over into the rushing stream below, and at the same moment Lou uttered an odd exclamation, more of anger than fear, and straightened up to her full height. "It's Max!" she informed Jim. "You git back behind the mill; you ain't fit to fight----" "What do you take me for?" Jim demanded indignantly. "Max Hess, eh? The fellow who treated you so badly back at that farm? I wanted to get him this morning, the hound! You go straight back into the mill yourself, and leave me to handle him." But he was too late. The wagon had crossed the bridge and halted in front of them so suddenly that the horse slid along for a pace upon his haunches. "Got yer!" a thick voice announced triumphantly, as a burly figure wrapped the reins around the whip socket and lumbered to the ground. "Yah! I thought there was a feller in it, somewheres!" He approached them with menacingly clenched fists, but Jim asked coldly: "Are you addressing this young woman?" "Young thief, you mean! She's gotter come----" But Jim, too, had advanced a pace. "Take that back and get in your wagon and beat it," he announced distinctly, with a calmness which the other mistook for mildness. "If your name is Hess, this young woman is not going back with you, and I warn you now to be off." "So that's it, is it?" the heavy voice sneered. "She's my mother's hired girl, an' she stole a lot o' food an' ran away this mornin'. Comes o' takin' in an asylum brat----" "Take that back, too, you blackguard!" Jim's voice was beginning to shake. "Take nothin' back, 'cept Lou! What's she doin' with you, anyway? Might ha' knowed she was this sort----" He got no further, for something landed like a hammer upon his nose and the blood streamed down between his thick lips, choking him. With an inarticulate roar of rage he lowered his bull neck and drove at the other man, but the other man wasn't there! Then another light, stinging blow landed upon his fat face and he flailed out again with a force that turned him completely around, for again his adversary had danced out of his way. Every drop of bad blood in the lout was aroused now, for he was the bully and terror of his community, and he could not understand this way of fighting, nor why his own blows failed to land when this tramp could dodge in and punish him apparently whenever he chose.