"Certainly, ma'am," he responded; "but how far'd a hundred dollars go in wages for hired help? If I wasn't throwing in my work free I couldn't afford to take them fifty acres off your hands at that figure. Of course, I'd sooner you took the hull place at three hundred, then as much more would hire you a man, and if Mr. Carton looked after him pretty sharp there might be enough crop to feed your horses and cow, and he wouldn't have to spend more than a thousand dollars in stock and implements to start with." I was slightly irritated that he addressed these remarks solely to Marion; one might have supposed that he thought she was the head of the family and that I was not even a party of the first part. "I'll think the matter over," I began, with dignified hauteur, "and let you----" Peter turned to me hastily. "That's as reasonable as I can do," he explained, with plaintive determination; "and I've got to know right away if you want the place." "Well," I began, with an eager eye on Marion for the cue, "I--I----" "There's another man after it," urged Peter, "and he's coming to-morrow for my answer." Marion gasped. "We'd better pay the--the four"---- "The four hundred," I decided, for her, "and let you run the farm." "Done," snapped Peter. It was evening when we parted from Peter Waydean on the station platform. He shook me warmly by the hand as the train appeared. "You're a gentleman, Mr. Carton, from the word go," he shouted hoarsely in my ear. "The bargain's made, and though there's no writing betwixt us, there's no need of any, for we're men of honor. I'll tell the other man"---- "Yes, certainly," I assented, detaching myself as the train slowed up. "Not a word to the neighbors about the well-sweep, or about what you're paying for the place," he continued, holding the lapel of my coat. "They're a prying, gossiping lot, and I wouldn't like it known that you hoisted me on that darn see-saw. It's the first time Peter Waydean was ever treed, but considering that you're the man that done it, we'll cry quits." As I caught a flashing steely glint in the depths of his ingenuous blue eyes the conviction was borne in upon me that, like the simulated stillness of a deadly revolving tool, his simplicity and truth were more apparent than real. And this was the impression that made me so silent and thoughtful on our journey back to the city. For the close of such an eventful day we had little to say to each other. With every mile that we travelled an unpleasant suspicion grew stronger as I thought over the bargain with that guileful man; gradually the suspicion changed to a certainty, and then it was that I became aware that Marion, who had also been strangely silent, was studying me with a tantalizing air of knowing my thoughts. "What is it?" I asked, with sudden annoyance. "I was just thinking," she began, then she stopped to laugh gleefully--"do you remember what the postmistress said about him skin"----