All this time the boys, standing aloof from the crowd of loungers, had regarded the scene with very different expressions. Herc's lips trembled with suppressed laughter as he witnessed the painful operation of separating old Zack from his beloved money, while Ned's face bore a thoughtful look, as if he were revolving some serious project in his mind. Hank Harkins had taken advantage of the temporary diversion from himself as a centre of interest to shuffle off, and was by this time well on his way home, considering, as he went, the best way in which he could explain his soot-smeared face and rapidly swelling eye. A short time afterwards the boys accompanied their elder to his spring-wagon and, as they had walked down to the store, prepared to accompany him home. "Look out for squalls," Herc whispered to Ned, as the two lads unhitched the team. His warning was not ill-judged. The vials of old Zack's wrath burst with the fury of a midsummer storm above the boys' heads as soon as the wagon had clattered out of the village and was climbing the steep ascent to Zack Strong's farm. "Of all the useless, idle scamps that I ever had on the farm, you are the worst," began the querulous old man, "and then, to cap it all, you go to fighting and brawling in public and cost me two dollars and an American dime to settle it. I don't see why Paul Stevens couldn't have taken that Canadian one. They're as good as any others, in some places," he went on, his mind reverting to his other grievance, "but that's the way in this world, nothing but ingratitude everywhere you turn. I've nourished a pair of sar-pints, that's what I've done. You're rattle-brains, both on yer." He turned a sour enough countenance on the two lads as he spoke. "Sort of rattlesnakes, eh?" cheerfully remarked the irrepressible Herc. "It's no use being angry, gran'pa," he went on, "we'd finished splitting the last of that tough hickory before we came down to the village and, as there was nothing else to do till chore-time----" "You spent it in disgracing yourselves, eh?" grimly rejoined old Zack. "I'm tired of it, I tell you," he railed on, "and----" "And so are we," quietly broke in Ned, whose face still wore the same thoughtful look that had come over it just before they left the store. "What?" quavered the old man, as if he thought he had not heard aright. "I mean 'so are we tired of it,'" repeated Ned, slowly, but in a firm voice, "we work for you early and late, grandpa, and nothing ever comes of it but scolding and fault-finding." "Didn't I pay two dollars ten cents for that busted stove, Ned?" complained old Zack, "and I'll swear the damage wasn't more'n one ninety-eight, and----" "That's not the question, now," went on Ned, in the same quiet, determined voice, "as it was partly my fault that the stove was overturned I'll pay you back that out of my own pocket."