That "opposing force" was much nearer than the young man at the moment imagined. He was just emerging by the path to the main road which he was to cross, half a mile before reaching his own farm, when he saw a horseman riding rapidly up from the eastward. Intersecting the path just where it joined the road, was a blind road leading through the woods across toward the Darby, and closed at the entrance by a swinging gate. There was a low panel near it, and the young farmer leaped it in preference to unfastening the clumsy latch--finding himself, when beyond the fence, in the presence of Carlton Brand, who had just reined in his horse at the gate. Whatever there may have been in the face of the horseman at that moment, within a few minutes after his leaving the presence of Margaret Hayley and his sister, the eyes of Dick Compton were not sufficiently keen to recognize it. He only saw the handsome, proud-looking young lawyer, and his old antipathy rose, with the remembrance of the threat he had just used, accompanying it. Carlton Brand saw nothing more in the face of the young farmer than he had been accustomed to see, and accosted him as he might have done any other acquaintance, under the same circumstances, with a request for a slight service. "Ah, Compton, is that you?--just be kind enough to throw open that gate for me, will you?" "No--I'll not do any thing of the kind. If you want the gate open, just get off and open it yourself!" was the surly reply, very much to the astonishment of the lawyer. His face paled a little, then flushed, and he hesitated for an instant before he asked: "What do you mean, Richard Compton, by answering me in that manner?" "What I say!" answered Compton, quite as insolently as before. "You are a puppy, Carlton Brand, and I have half a mind to take you off that horse and flog you soundly, instead of opening a gate for you." "The d----l you have!" was the very natural reply. "Well, Dick Compton, I do not know what it is all about, but you are behaving very much like a ruffian, to a man who has never done any thing worse to you than to treat you like a gentleman." "You lie, Carlton Brand, and you know it!" was the response. "I lie, do I?" and the speaker shifted a little uneasily in his saddle, though he made no apparent movement to alight. "Yes, you lie!" said Compton, his voice thick and hoarse with agitation and anger. "And if you will get off that horse I will teach you a lesson about meddling with other people's property, that you will remember for a twelvemonth."