He was leaning against the door post and he was laughing as if he were Jove and could find nothing half so amusing as the capers of earth-men. He laughed on and on, more and more mockingly, more and more terribly. His mirth was an insult to those who were engaged in that senseless combat. It held them in contempt; it made nothing of them. The children, amazed, fixed their eyes on him. They did not like that laughter. It raged and roared at their ancient mountain quarrel; it put them among the fools of the world. Their anger turned from each other to the man. They forgot the writhing boys upon the floor, and drew towards Haystack Thompson, resentment in their faces. Just then, they were given another surprise. Azalea had at last thought to some purpose. No one saw her save Carin, as she took the full water pail from the bench and advanced with it toward these last silly clansmen of the Simms and Coulters; but Carin, quick to catch the idea, seized a second pail, and a moment later a deluge of water descended upon the fighters, and two gasping, strangling boys, their grip relaxed, lay upon the floor. Haystack Thompson was a quick-witted ally. He bounded forward and grasping Coulter by the shirt collar—a stout shirt it was, made of home-spun—plumped him down in a seat, then seeing him still in the throes of strangulation, proceeded to pound him lustily on the back. Azalea, meantime, had pulled the smaller boy to his feet. He was bleeding at the nose; one eye was closed and he was blubbering and choking. She wiped his face with a firm and determined hand, and led him to the front of the room. “Go for more water,” she commanded, finding that the blood still spurted from the poor injured nose. The children held back sullenly, but Paralee Panther picked up a pail and went to do her bidding. The fiddler’s fearful laughter having ceased, a strange, shamed quiet hung over the room, broken only by the angry snortings and sobbing of the two fighters. And then the fiddler began to laugh again, but not in the old way. This time he laughed as if at the funniest joke that man ever heard. He began gently, like one amused, he went on to heights of wild and reckless mirth which reduced the children, and Azalea and Carin with them, to helpless, suffering spasms of laughter. There was no resisting such mirth. It spread like fire, and once alight, it seemed as if nothing could ever extinguish it.