“Call it what you like!” Henry hurled at him. “I don't care. You are rollin' in money, makin' it hand over fist--goin' to your grave rich, and I haven't any way of living. Other fellows' daddies help them along, but you never give me a cent. I used to ask you, and you'd curse me and threaten to kick me out. I'm your son, and you are stinkin' rich. You can't bluff me. I'm reckless. I don't care a tinker's damn what I do. I need money--that's all--I need it.” Hoag stood puffing. He was conscious of a fluttering about his heart, and he had the sudden fear that an outburst might mean his undoing on the spot, but he was too angry to control himself. “So you are a thief!” he panted. “You eat at my table, sleep under my roof, an' come here with a wagon to steal my stuff. Do you know what I'm goin' to do with you?” “Not knowing, I can't say,” Henry answered, with colloquial quotation. “I've known you to get weak-kneed, as you did the day Jeff Warren called you to taw at the Court House. Jeff saw through it and told how you ate the crow he shoved at you on the point of his gun.” This angry taunt was the worst missile the desperate young man could have thrown. It drove splotches of pallor into the crimson of his father's face. “You mean you think I'm a coward?” Hoag cried. “You--you dare--” “I don't mean nothing about it; I _know_ it,” Henry retorted, still with the furious smile on his lips, a reckless flare in his eyes. “Well, I'll show you what I'm goin' to do to _you_, anyway,” Hoag said, fiercely. “I'm goin' to give you the best lickin' you ever had in all your bom days.” “You say you are!” Henry laughed, almost with actual spontaneity. “Yes, I am, an' right here an' now.” “'Right here an' now,'” Henry repeated, grimly. “Well, that is a good joke; 'right here an' now'--poof! You'd better set in. It will be breakfast time before long.” “You wait a minute,” Hoag growled, as he took up the lantern and placed it on a bale of cotton; then he turned back to the door, closed the shutter and fastened the metal latch with fingers that fumbled and evoked an audible clatter in the silent room. Then, with his revolver in his hip-pocket, he stalked back to his son, who sat on the bale of leather sullenly picking his teeth with a splinter. Their eyes met like those of two infuriated beasts driven into contact by the goads of spectators. Beyond the lantern's flare the darkness hung like a curtain. Hoag picked up a piece of hard-twisted hemp rope about a yard in length, and with furious jerks proceeded to tie a knot in one end of it. “You not only try to rob me, but you dare to insult me!” he cried, frothy saliva trickling from the corners of his big, weak mouth. “I'm goin' to give you a lickin' that you won't forget till you die.” Henry stood up. A smile dawned on his face and died; he locked his hands behind him; his lips were as firm as if cut in granite; his eyelids drew close together, and the balls gleamed with the fire of invincible purpose.