Alethea’s face flushed. Ben Doaks, dismayed to be the indirect occasion of her anger, and secretly affronted by the breach of decorum which he considered involved in this open mention of his bootless suit, hastened to change the subject. “Did ye hev a word ter say ter me, Jacob?” he asked. “Ye ’lowed, day ’fore yestiddy, ye wanted ter sell yer steer.” There was now no sound from the cove. The burnished glisters of the sunshine hung above it, holding in suspension a gauzy haze, through which the purple mountains were glamourous and darkly vague. Jacob, his senses yet in thrall, could hardly recall the question he had desired to ask concerning the rifle-shots that had trivially jarred its perfect serenity. “Yes, yes,” he said hastily. “Buck, ye know,” with the manner of introduction. “Yander he be.” He pointed to a gaunt dun-colored ox with long horns and a joyless mien, standing within a few feet of a rude trough which the spring branch kept supplied. “Jacob,” said Alethea, turning her head with a knitted brow, “ef ye sell Buck, how air we goin’ ter plough our craps? How air we goin’ ter live along?” “Laws-a-massy!” exclaimed Mrs. Sayles. “I ain’t s’prised none ef the man ez marries Lethe at last will find out he hev got a turrible meddler. She jes’ ups an’ puts inter her elders’ affairs ez brash ez ef hern war the only brains in the fambly. Jacob’s a-savin’ ter buy a horse, child. Yer dad ’lowed Jacob mought use his jedgmint ’bout all the crappin’, bein’ ez yer dad’s old an’ ain’t long fur this worl’. So Jacob hev determinated ter buy a horse. Who wants ter work a steer when they ken hev a horse?” Doaks looked intently at Alethea, loyally eager to range himself on her side. She was oblivious of his presence now; every faculty was on the alert in her single-handed contest against the family. “Whar’s the money he hev saved?” she demanded. Her step-brother seemed frowzier than ever, as he lifted his eyebrows in vain cogitation for an answer. “Ye shet up,” he said, in triumphant substitution; “ye ain’t no kin ter me.” Alethea, all lacking in the bland and mollifying feminine influences that subtly work their ends in seeming submission, bluntly spoke her inmost thought: “Ez long ez thar’s a moonshine still a-runnin’ somewhar round Piomingo Cove, Jacob ain’t goin’ ter save no money.” “Thar ain’t no still round hyar ez I knows on,” said Doaks, in surprise. “Over yander in Eskaqua Cove thar air a bonded still, I know.” “That bonded still hev ter sell wholesale, hevin’ no license otherwise,” she retorted, “an’ Jacob hain’t saved enough yit ter buy by the five gallon. An’ though he may ’pear sober ter you-uns, he don’t ter me.” Jacob bore her scathing glance with an admirable equanimity. “Ye shet up, Lethe; ye dunno nuthin’ ’bout stills, bonded or no. Look-a-hyar, Ben, don’t ye want ter buy Buck? See him thar?” “I don’t want him,” said Ben.