The irate glance which Cap'n Lucy shot at him served to steady him a trifle, to tame his buoyant sense of triumph. He had an ample fund of physical courage; that is, in his fresh, healthy, normal mental impulses he never thought of fear. But he had seldom been brought into actual personal danger, and the details of sundry lawless and furious feuds that had come to his knowledge during his stay in the mountains were brought suddenly to his remembrance by that swift, scathing look; he was further reminded that few of these bloody chronicles recounted so definite a provocation as the effort at eviction. Nevertheless, the sense of proprietorship was strong within him, and the active aggressiveness of a man with the coercions of that weapon in his hand, the law of the land, made his blood stir when Cap'n Lucy, wagging his arbitrary old head, retorted, "An' s'pose I say--like I hev said--ez my h'a'thstone ain't got no price! S'pose I won't sell, an' I won't gin in, an' I keep my line whar I know my line hev got a right ter be,--whut then, hey?" But for his gray head, so did his manner and expression reach the climax of aggravation, it might have seemed righteousness to smite him. Kenniston, held in the bonds of such considerations, controlled himself with difficulty. He was unused to self-restraint, or to occasions that necessitated it. The color had overspread his face; he was hot, impatient, indignant. "Why, then, there's nothing for it but to procession the land and establish the boundary," he declared. Cap'n Lucy stared in amazement. This possibility seemed never to have occurred to him as a solution. "Percession my lan'!" he cried at last, as if the extremity of insult had been offered him. "Percession my lan'!" His face was scarlet; his eye blazed; his hand, held out with a gesture of insistence toward Kenniston, shook with fury. "Or _my_ land," Kenniston sneered. "'Tisn't capital punishment. Plenty of men have survived the processioning of land,--thriven on it! My land, then; the process won't hurt it. Get the line,--that's what I want." Once or twice Adelicia sought, in her agitation, to interpose. Now she rose and came to Cap'n Lucy's side, taking hold of the shaking hand which he brought ever nearer to Kenniston's face, who would not draw back, nor mitigate nor postpone his demand, in the front of this threatening gesture. "Oh, uncle Lucy--don't--don't! Sweet uncle Lucy, don't! Thar's room enough in the mountings fur all o' we-uns! Look at the mountings--how big they air--toler'ble roomy fur sure! Don't quar'l 'bout _lan'_, uncle Lucy,--whenst we-uns hev got all out o' doors fur lan',--an' git in a fight, mebbe, an' git hurt, an'"--