Mr. Gooch put a dampener on this. “I don’t see how that would help any if a mob took him out of jail and lynched him. They say lynching is getting worse all the time in this part of the country.” Whereupon Mr. Sikes arose and said something under his breath, adding an instant later: “Don’t let me hear anything about Solomon being so dodgasted wise. Look at all the brother-in-laws he must have taken unto himself—and with his eyes open, too.” CHAPTER V OLIVER IS FOUND TO HAVE A TEMPER Ten years pass. The time has come when Oliver October Baxter is to be told what is in store for him if he does not mend his ways. For, be it here recorded, Oliver not only possesses a quick temper but a surprisingly sanguinary way of making it felt. He is a rugged, freckle-faced youngster with curly brown hair, a pair of stout legs, and a couple of hard little fists. It is with these hard little fists that he makes his temper felt. Ordinarily he retires behind a barn or down into the grove back of the school-house to settle his quarrels, not through any sense of delicacy but because both he and his adversary of the moment realize that if they are caught at it the pride of victory or the gloom of defeat would soon be forgotten in the sound thrashings administered by teacher or parent, justice monstrously untempered by mercy. But there came a day when Oliver’s valor got the better of his discretion, and, sad to relate, Joseph Sikes and Silas Link took that very day to accompany each other to the north end of town, where, just beyond the school-house, was situated the home of a vacillating Republican who had made up his mind to vote the Democratic ticket at the coming county election. They were on their way, as a committee of two, to convince him that he couldn’t commit a crime like that and still go on enjoying the respect, the confidence, and to some extent, the credit, that had been his up to that time. They arrived at the school-house just in time to witness a fierce but bloodless fight between two panting, clawing youngsters. It was taking place in the schoolyard, in plain view of passers-by, and was being relished by a score or more of pupils of both sexes. Now, Mr. Sikes was a man who enjoyed a good fight. He was getting to the age where he had to think twice and study his adversary cautiously before engaging in one himself, for, notwithstanding his strength and his pugnacity, he was not the man he used to be—witness: the awful beating he sustained in his fifty-second year at the hands of Joe Fox, the twenty-one year old shortstop on the Rumley base ball team. It was he, therefore, who stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and gleefully yelled “sic-em” to the battling youngsters.