“I hear no talk against the Preacher,” Hicks went on, after a time; “I won't, and why not is my business. He ain't for you to understand, nor the like of you, nor the like of Jimmy Shays,--neither him, nor his talk, nor his book. What of it? There ain't another man in Port Argent but me that understands that book. But the Preacher don't do all my thinking for me, and you're wrong there, Coglan. What do you know about him, or me? What's the use of my talking to you? But if you did know, and then if you said, 'The Preacher holds a man back till he's like to go crazy, and always did'; or if you said, 'The Preacher's for setting you on fire and then smothering it, till he's burnt your bowels out'; and if you talked like that, as understanding him and me, maybe I'd talk to you. I'd talk so, too, for his way ain't my way.” He pointed a crooked finger at the torn book on the table. “See that book! It's called 'Communism.' Half of it's right and half of it's not. That's my way.” His two-handed gesture of ripping the book in two was so sudden and savage that Coglan dropped his chair and turned to look at the book in a startled way, as if he expected to see something ghastly. “But it ain't the Preacher's way. But I ain't the man to be held back,” said Hicks, “and patted and cooed over. Not me. Show me a snake and I stamp on it! Show me the spot and I hit it! Damn!” He twisted his mouth. His teeth clicked again, and his crooked fingers drove the glittering needles swiftly back and forth through the leather. Coglan stared at him with prominent eyeballs and mouth open. Shays wiped his glasses, and then his red-lidded eyes with his coat sleeve. “All frien's, Hicksy! Ain't we?” he murmured uneasily. Coglan recovered. “An' that's right, too. Jimmy Shays is a kind man and a peaceable man, an' I'm a sensible man, an' yer an industhrious man, but yer not a wise man, Hicksy, an'”--with sudden severity--“I'll thank ye not to stomp on Tom Coglan.” He got up. Shays rose, too, and put on his coat, and both went out of the door. Hicks gave a cackling laugh, but did not look after them. Presently he finished the shoe, laid it down, rubbed his hands, and straightened his back. Then he went and got the torn book, sat down, and read in it half an hour or more, intent and motionless. The factory whistles blew for twelve o'clock. He rose and went to a side cupboard, took out a leathern rifle case, put a handful of cartridges in his pockets, and left the shop. The grocer's children in the side doorway fled inward to the darkness of the hall as he passed. The grocer's wife also saw him, and drew back behind the door. He did not notice any of them. The long eastward-leading street grew more and more dusty and unpaved. He passed empty lots and then open fields, cornfields, clumps of woods, and many trestles of the oil wells. He climbed a rail fence and entered a large piece of woods, wet and cool. The new leaves were just starting from their buds.