"I hope it is. I couldn't get the judge to take back the order for the sale of the land; he's afeard of you. But now let me tell you something, Enoch Lumsden! If you sell my land by that order of the court, you'll lose more'n you'll make. I ain't afeard of the devil nor none of his angels; and I recken you're one of the blackest. It'll cost you more burnt barns and dead hosses and cows and hogs and sheep than what you make will pay for. You cheated pappy, but you shan't make nothin' out of Little Kike. I'll turn Ingin, and take Ingin law onto you, you old thief and--" [Illustration: THE ALTERCATION.] Here Captain Lumsden stepped forward and raised his cowhide. "I'll teach you some manners, you impudent little brat!" Kike quivered all over, but did not move hand or foot. "Hit me if you dare, Enoch Lumsden, and they'll be blood betwixt us then. You hit me wunst, and they'll be one less Lumsden alive in a year. You or me'll have to go to the bone-yard." Patty had stopped her wheel, had forgotten all about her two dozen a day, and stood frightened in the door, near Morton. Morton advanced and took hold of Kike. "Come, Kike! Kike! don't be so wrothy," said he. "Keep hands offen me, Mort Goodwin," said Kike, shaking loose. "I've got an account to settle, and ef he tetches a thread of my coat with a cowhide, it'll be a bad day fer both on us. We'll settle with blood then." "It's no use for you to interfere, Mort," snarled the captain. "I know well enough who put Kike up to this. I'll settle with both of you, some day." Then, with an oath, the captain went into the house, while the two young men moved away down the road, Morton not daring to look at Patty. What Morton dreaded most had come upon him. As for Kike, when once they were out of sight of Lumsden's, the reaction on his feeble frame was terrible. He sat down on a log and cried with grief and anger. "The worst of it is, I've ruined your chances, Mort," said he. And Morton did not reply. _CHAPTER VI._ THE FALL HUNT. Morton led Kike home in silence, and then returned to his father's house, deposited his turkey outside the door, and sat down on a broken chair by the fire-place. His father, a hypochondriac, hard of hearing, and slow of thought and motion, looked at him steadily a moment, and then said: "Sick, Mort? Goin' to have a chill?" "No, sir." "You look powerful dauncy," said the old man, as he stuffed his pipe full of leaf tobacco which he had chafed in his hand, and sat down on the other side of the fire-place. "I feel a kind of all-overishness myself. I 'low we'll have the fever in the bottoms this year. Hey?" "I don't know, sir." "What?"