“Look here, King Bradish,” she cried, “I don’t know what Hen’ Purday is saying and I don’t care. But I do know that Squire Phin Look was here this very afternoon, and the libel was served on Mr. Dunham, and the Squire is down there in the school house this very minute talkin’----” In spite of herself her voice wavered, for she had been wondering with angry astonishment why her lawyer should go into so long a conference with the other side. Bradish slowly stretched up his arms and yawned. “Yes?” he drawled. “Down there with the school-marm, hey? Probably he’s telling her how the paper that was served on your husband to-day was only a dog-license blank, and they’re having a laugh, and he’s explaining how he will fix the thing up and fool you.” She slammed open the gate and started down the road. “Jump in!” he invited. “You seem to be in a hurry, and I don’t blame you a bit.” A few moments later he snapped his hitch-weight into his horse’s bridle and followed the angry woman into the dusty entry-way of the little school house. Esther tore at the knob of the inner door and threw it open. Squire Phin sat in the little teacher’s chair. The little teacher was huddled on the floor at his feet, her head on his knee. He was stroking a shoulder that was quivering with sobs. At the woman’s first explosion the lawyer arose and put his arm around the teacher and led her toward the door. “I will talk with you when you are in your right mind, Esther,” he said. “But this poor child has suffered enough from your tongue. Isn’t there one streak of womanhood left in you?” He put out his arm and gently pushed her from their path, leading the schoolma’am toward the door. “A pretty spectacle of a man you are, Bradish,” he gritted. “You’re trampling on a poor girl to strike a coward’s blow at me.” His face was gray with passion and his brows knotted above flaming eyes. He shouldered against the other and crowded him back into the entry-way and to one side. Bradish had his whip. “If it wasn’t for the presence of the ladies here, Look,” he cried, “I’d lace you till you howled.” “Bradish,” replied the Squire, “you’re hiding behind women now, like the cur that you are, and you have been hiding behind a woman for a good many years. Some day--but I’m a fool to stoop to your level. Come, child.” He strode away across the yard, the little teacher in the hook of his arm. “I guess you might as well take back your husband, Mrs. Dunham,” he heard Bradish cry after him. “Your lawyer seems to have cut him out.” CHAPTER VIII--SQUIRE PHIN ACTS AS PEACEMAKER I’m tellin’ ye what Eph Landers did The time that he went and lost his fid. He was yankin’ boulders a week ago-- Tumble feller to hump and go! He strung his chain round a rousin’ rock And found that he’d lost the little block To catch the link; it’s used instid