To Henry the strike meant little. He sensed a little of it, through the things that he read in the badly printed weekly paper at Elsie, he understood the guards who tramped up and down the right of way warning him back whenever he threw a leg over the fence. But as the trouble grew more tense, as bridges went up in horrific explosions, as trains were wrecked mysteriously and engineers intimidated, Henry saw the strain of it reflected in the harassed eyes of Mary Hill. There was a young marine in the station now, whenever he tramped down in the mornings--a cocky youth with dark eyes and a proud scowl. A day or two after that, Henry bought a heavy calibered revolver from the black-smith. That night he nailed a tobacco can on his woodshed, and when Mary Hill came by, he haled her in and made her practise shooting at the can till she could hit it three times out of six--till the palm of her hand was blistered by the heavy stock. "They blew the bridge at Alapaha last night," she told him, as he rubbed melted resin on the blisters. Henry could understand much that she said by this time, if she spoke slowly and distinctly. He nodded. "You keep this here and use it," he ordered, oiling the cylinder and loading it deftly. "Gun ain't no good if you're scart of it. And if that soldier down there gives you any sass you pop him over, too. I don't like the look of him, no time--he's too blame' smart." A slow color crept over Mary Hill's face at this, and with it a crawling chill was communicated to old Henry's heart. There was a rift--tiny, almost imperceptible, yet appalling to the lonely old man to whom the friendship of this girl had come to be such a tremendous thing. Her eyes avoided his for an instant, then the dancing laughter came into them again. She laid the grim gun down on the back steps and snatched at the old man's hand. Henry knew what she wanted--to see that cherry tree. She had bought it for him from a fruit tree peddler and they had watched the opening of every bud. It ought to be in bloom today--every flower open. They hurried past the pie-plant row and the humming beehives. At the fence old Henry Hornbone halted, aghast. He wavered a bit, and then black, militant wrath darkened his face. The little cherry tree was bent sideways, half stripped of its bark, wilted, trampled. And beside it, driven grimly into the ground was a very new white post, very blatantly lettered in black--"B. & A. RAILROAD. RIGHT OF WAY."