There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got up. "What yeh goin' to do about ut?" he sneered. "I'm going to stop it." The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul flaming from his eyes. "W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!" An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and slightly shook his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously. "If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an egg-shell!" His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone in it that made his own blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to roll around on this ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your man. I'll kill you, but I won't fight with such men as you are." Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward." "I don't care what you call me, but just remember what I say: you keep your tongue off that girl's affairs." "That's the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but don't use a fork. You can handle him without that." "I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a pail of water for Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her beautiful yellow hair. She was laughing at something Ed was saying as he slowly moved the handle up and down. Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward her. "It's all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She's a fool. If she'd hold herself in, like other girls! But no; she must smile and smile at everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a shiver through him. He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an impulse that would have made him assault her with words as with a knife. He was possessed of a terrible passion which was hitherto latent in him, and which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was powerless to exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of his muscular tension, and his eyes smarted with the strain. He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these absurd quarrels which his companions had indulged in. He didn't suppose he could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage settled into a sort of stubborn bitterness--stubborn bitterness of conflict between this evil nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of possession, the organic feeling of proprietorship of a woman, which rose to the surface and mastered him. He was not a self-analyst, of course, being young, though he was more introspective than the ordinary farmer. He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on there, pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of the miserable desire to punish Agnes; and when she came out, looking very pretty in her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he knew she came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile; and yet he worked away with his hat pulled over his eyes, hardly noticing her.