Young Jim wanted no trouble, that was plain enough to be seen. The first darting realization that his tribal foe had forced a meeting on him seemed to leave him dazed, and at a loss for the proper course to follow. He bent his face away from the blasphemous insistent--glare of the old man and made a poor pretense at straightening up his wares upon the bench in front of him; but his hands trembled so he overturned a little wooden measure that held a nickel's worth of dried lady-peas. The little round peas rolled along a sunken place in the wood and began spattering off in a steady stream, like buck-shot spilling from a canister. A dark red flush came up the back of the boy's neck. He was only twenty, anyhow, and those who looked on were sorry for him and for his youth and helplessness and glad that little Emmy Hardin, his sweetheart, wasn't there. It was a long half minute that old Ranee, without speaking, stood there, soaking his soul in the sight of a Faxon's discomfiture, and when he spoke he grated the words as though he had grit in his mouth. “Looky here you,” he ordered, and the boy, as though forced to obey by a will stronger than his own, lifted his head and looked at him. “Mister Fleming,” he answered, “what--what is it you want with me--Mister Fleming?” “Mister Fleming--Mister Fleming,” mimicked the older man, catching at his words, “Mister Fleming, huh? Well, you know mighty good and well, I reckin, whut it is I want with you. I want to see if you're as white-livered as the rest of your low-flung, hound-dawg, chicken-hearted breed used to be. And I reckin you are. “Mister Fleming, huh? Well, from now on that's whut it better be and don't you fail to call me by them entitlements either. The next time I come by I reckin you better take off your hat to me too. Do you hear me, plain, whut I'm a-sayin'? You--” He called him the unforgivable, unatonable name--the fighting word, than which, by the standards of that community and those people, no blow with a clenched fist could be in one twentieth part so grievous an injury; yes, it was worse than a hundred blows of a fist. So at that, the onlookers gave back a little, making way for the expected rush and grapple. But there was no forward rush by the younger man, no grapple with the older. Young Jim Faxon took it--he just stood and took it without a word or a step. Old Ranee looked at him and laughed out his contempt in a derisive chuckle and then he turned and slouched off, without looking back, as though he disdained to watch for a rear attack from so puny and spineless an enemy. It all started and happened and was over with in a minute or less. The last of the spilt lady peas were still spattering down upon the rough bricks of the market and running away and hiding themselves in cracks. Young Jim, his head on his breast and his shamed eyes looking down at nothing, was fumbling again with his wares and Ranee Fleming's hunching shoulders were vanishing at the end of the shed.