With Mink’s second shot arose the great dispute of the day. Like Rood’s, it was not fairly in the bull’s-eye, if the point of intersection might be so called, but it too lacked only a hair’s breadth. Mink was willing enough for a new trial, but Rood, protesting, stood upon his rights. The judges consulted together apart, reëxamined the boards, finally announced their incapacity to decide, and called in the “thirdsman.” Mink made no objection when the miller, as referee, came to look at the board. He, too, examined it closely, holding his big hat in his hand that it might cast no shadow. There was no perceptible difference in the value of the two shots. Mink hardly believed he had heard aright when the “thirdsman,” with scarcely a moment’s hesitation, declared there was no doubt about the matter. Rood’s shot was the fairer. “I could draw a line ’twixt Mink’s and the centre.” There was a yell of derision from the young fellows. Rood wore a provoking sneer. Mink stood staring. “Look-a-hyar,” he said roughly, “ye haffen-blind old ow_el_! Ye can’t tell the differ ’twixt them shots. It’s a tie.” “Rood’s air the closest, an’ he gits the fust ch’ice o’ beef!” said the old man, his white beard and mustache yawning with his toothless laugh. “Ai-yi! Mink, ye ain’t so powerful minkish yit ez ter git the fust ch’ice o’ beef.” “Ye’ll hev the second ch’ice, Mink,” said Price consolingly. He himself, the fourth best shot, had the fourth choice. “I won’t hev the second ch’ice!” exclaimed Mink. “It’s nobody but that thar weezened old critter ez ’lows I oughter. Fust he sent his gran’son, that thar slack-twisted ’Gustus Tom, ter git in my aim,—wisht I hed shot him! An’ then, when I lets him be thurdsman, he air jes’ so durned m’licious he don’t even stop an’ take a minit ter decide.” Mink’s heart was hot. He had been wounded in his most vulnerable susceptibility, his pride in his marksmanship. “Look-a-hyar, Mink!” remonstrated Price, “ye ain’t a-goin’ off ’fore the beef’s been butchered an’ ye git the second ch’ice. Stop! Hold on!” For Mink was about to mount. “I don’t want no beef,” he said. “I hev been cheated ’mongst ye. I won the fust ch’ice, an’ I won’t put up with the second.” Price was nonplused for a moment; then he evolved a solution. “I’ll sell it, Mink,” he cried, “an’ bring ye the money! An’ don’t ye furgit old Tobias Winkeye,” he added beguilingly. “Who’s old Tobias Winkeye?” asked the miller tartly. Price laughed, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans trousers, and looked around, winking at the others with a jocosity enfeebled somewhat by his light sparse lashes. “Jes’ a man ez hev got a job fur Mink,” he said, enigmatically. The old miller, baffled, and apprehending the mockery, laughed loud and aggressively, his white beard shaking, his bushy eyebrows overhanging his twinkling eyes. “Hedn’t ye better bust the mill down, Mink?” he said floutingly. “I will,—see ef I don’t!” Mink retorted, as he wheeled his mare.