So this was where Tess Bedermier had come, pregnant with his child, to live with the only man who would take her in, to bury that first child in an unmarked grave, and to bear Bung Sherman three children out of wedlock, of whom Early Ann alone had survived. Here was the desolate farm on which Early Ann--no child of Stud's--had grown and blossomed, and it was here that Bung Sherman had died in a drunken brawl with a duck hunter. After Bung's death Tess had gone off with a man who stopped at the farm for a drink of water, a man whose name was unknown to the neighbors and whose only distinguishing characteristic was that he carried in the crook of his arm a large black cat. Two weeks later Early Ann had gone to join them. As Stud watched the sun setting over the vast marshes he thought he felt a cold wind blow across the barn lot, and the hair stood up on the nape of his neck. The killdeers called that a storm was at hand. Clouds rolled up from the horizon and distant thunder rattled like wheels on a far bridge. Then, suddenly, the sky was black and over-cast. The lightning flashed close at hand,--jagged blue, reflected on the dark pools and the channels. The trees bowed low, the dust whirled, and rain came down over countless miles of marsh land. CHAPTER VII 1 When Stud returned from Horicon there was little time to think of Tess, Early Ann, Sarah, or any other woman for the farm was up to its ears in preparation for the Rock County Fair. Three magnificent stud animals were to be entered: Napoleon, the bull; Teddy Roosevelt, the stallion; and Ulysses S. Grant, the boar. Napoleon, the dark and silky black Jersey bull, whose pedigree covered several pages and included such ancestors as Imperial Delight, sired by Royal Edward out of Queen of the Channel Islands, looked every bit an aristocrat. National and international prize-winning blood ran in his veins. Mothers and grandmothers with amazing udders were listed on his family tree, and two or three of his bovine ancestors had sailed from the Isle of Jersey on a cattle boat named the _Mayflower_. With massive head and fiery eyes, he seemed to challenge the whole world to battle. In reality he was as gentle as a lamb and loved to be scratched behind the ears with a corn cob. As for Teddy Roosevelt, the Percheron stallion, with arching neck and melodramatic proportions, undoubtedly the blood of medieval chargers ran in his veins. Sired by the pride of Normandy, and himself the sire of scores of the finest Percherons in Southern Wisconsin, he walked as though a golden armored youth were on his back and plumes behind his ears.