The convict grunted. It was as if he had succeeded in rolling the last four years from his memory as completely as if they had never passed. “Jest wait till I see the black scamp,” he growled. “I reckon I ’ll have to do every lick of the work myself.” With that Wakeman turned into the entry and thence went to the stable-yard near by. “He hain’t altered a smidgin’,” Lucinda commented. “It may be kase he has on the identical same clothes; he’s been a-wearin’ striped ones down thar, you know, an’ they laid away his old ones. To save me I can’t realize that he’s been off even a week.” The old maid snickered softly. “He’s the only one that could ever manage you, Marty. Now Jeff Goardley would let you have yore own way, but Dick’s a caution! It’s always been a question with me as to whether a woman would ruther lead a man ur be led.” There was a white stare in Mrs Wakeman’s eyes which indicated that she was pondering the man’s chief aggression rather than heeding her sister’s nagging remarks. The sudden appearance of the convict’s head and shoulders above a near-at-hand window-sill rendered a reply unnecessary. His face was flushed. “Can you-uns tell me whar under the sun the halter is?” he broke forth, in a turbulent tone. “I tuk the trouble to put a iron hook up in the shed-room jest fer that halter, an’ now somebody has tore down the hook an’ I can’t find hair nur hide o’ the halter.” Mrs. Wakeman tried to sneer again as she turned aside, and the gaunt intermediary, spurred on to her duty, approached the window. “The blacksmith tuk that hook to mend the harrow with,” she said, with a warning glance at Marty. “You ’ll find the halter on the joist above the hoss-trough. Ef I was you, on this fust day, I’d try to--” But Wakeman had dropped out of sight, and muttering unintelligible sounds indicative of discomfiture, was striding toward the stable.