Caleb laughed. “My ward,” he said, and then he looked up and met three pairs of curious eyes. “It’s Jean Bartlett’s child,” he explained simply; “she died last night, and Dr. Cheyney threatened the Foundling Asylum, so I just brought the kid here; there’s room.” Judge Hollis leaned forward, both hands on his knees, and viewed the child. “What did you do it for, Caleb?” he asked, in the midst of the pause. “Heaven knows!” said Caleb, smiling, as he filled his pipe. “I fancy because the poor little devil had no home, and I’ve known what it was to want one.” The judge rubbed his chin. “I’m beat!” he said. The other two men looked on silently while Caleb lit his pipe. Sammy picked up the judge’s cane from the floor and tried slowly and solemnly to swallow the gold knob on the top of it. The judge sank slowly back into his chair, the old worn leather chair. “And there’ll be a duel to-morrow!” he remarked; then, looking at the child, he added feelingly, “It beats the band!” XV THE time for the duel was an hour before sunrise the following day, and to Caleb Trench, the Quaker, it was a gross absurdity. He had knocked down Jacob Eaton as he would have knocked down any man who insulted him, and he would have fought Jacob with his fists, but to shoot him down in cold blood was another matter; not that Trench was over merciful toward a man like Eaton, nor that he lacked the rancor, for an insult lingers in the blood like slow poison. Eaton had selected two young men from the city, and the cartel had been delivered with all the care and joy of an unusual entertainment. To Aaron Todd, the farmer, it was a matter as ridiculous as it was to Trench, though he could understand two men drawing their weapons on each other in a moment of disagreement. But Peter Mahan loved it as dearly as did Willis Broughton, a grand-nephew, by the way, of old Judge Hollis. The place chosen was Little Neck Meadow, and the seconds made their arrangements without any personal qualms. A fight, after all, in that broad southwestern country was like the salt on a man’s meat. Meanwhile the news that Caleb Trench had taken in Jean Bartlett’s child dropped like a stone in a still pool, sending the ripples of gossip eddying into wider circles until the edges of the puddle broke in muddy waves, for no one had ever really known who was the father of Jean’s boy. So, before Caleb rose at daybreak, to go to Little Neck Meadow, his adoption of Sammy was as famous as his Cresset speech, and as likely to bear unexpected fruits.