"Here they are," Hiram told him, and drew the pipe from one pocket and the flask of peach-brandy from another. "Here is your pipe that you left in one of our sheds day before yesterday, with burning tobacco in it. And the quantity of peach-brandy you had evidently drunk out of this flask made you forget both pipe and bottle. Neither of these things find favor in my sight about a farm, either inside or outside of a man." "I'll be switched!" ejaculated Adam Banks. "Huh!" His face blazed up and he gave every indication of having been caught with the goods. He even accepted the pipe and flask. Both Hiram and Mr. Bronson had already smelled liquor upon Adam Banks' breath. At least, he had had something besides ham and eggs for breakfast. But suddenly the loutish fellow decided not to acknowledge the ownership of the articles. "Here!" he growled. "These ain't mine. What are you trying to put over on me, Strong? More'n likely they were brought on the place by that tramp you've taken up with. I ain't been near your sheds." "You were seen there," Hiram said sharply. "More than that, your pipe has been identified. There is no use denying either fact. I shall not hire you." "Are you going to let me be treated like this, Mr. Bronson?" demanded Adam Banks. "Dad's a neighbor. We live right here. That upstart, Strong--" "That will do," interrupted Mr. Bronson, waving his hand in dismissal. "If Hiram doesn't want you that closes the discussion as far as I am concerned," and he walked away with his young farm manager, leaving Banks in the road. CHAPTER XII WORK BEGINS "I'd keep my eye on that fellow Banks if he continues to hang around here," said Mr. Bronson. "He means you ill." "And perhaps would do something to cause trouble. Perhaps I should have taken him on," Hiram Strong said thoughtfully. "I should say not! You did just right. You read him aright. His prime failings are drink and laziness. Just warn him off the premises if he bothers you. He's been in trouble and is not locally liked. Mr. Banks spared the rod in Adam's case, sure enough. "Now, Hiram, to get back to ditching. You don't mean to leave open ditches through that field, do you? I can't stand a ditch bank--always growing up in wild cherry and poison oak and such worthless trees and vines. Besides, open ditches interfere with tillage most abominably." "That is farthest from my thought, Mr. Bronson." "But tiling--" "I figure to underdrain with something much cheaper than tile," the young farmer declared. "What are you going to use?" Hiram pointed across the road at Miss Pringle's patch of scorched woodland. The underbrush and sprouts were beginning to show that faint blur of green that announces the coming of spring growth; but the trees were gaunt looking and black. "I've bought as many as I can use of those scorched trees at ten cents apiece," Hiram explained.