Boss Maddox stalked away. A crowd had gathered from all parts of the camp, attracted by Egbert's screams. Egbert raised himself on one arm and looked at the grinning faces before him. He got stiffly to his feet, mumbling to himself, his breast still heaving with sobs. "Me, a full-grown man, to be used like a dog! Cross his path!--ill day for him when I do!" He went a few paces, walking parallel to those assembled. Suddenly he turned to them, tears running down his face, and threw up his clenched hands. "I'll put a knife in 'im!" he cried. "By God, I'll put a knife in 'im!" The crowd laughed. CHAPTER II IMA SHOWS HER HEART I Percival suggested to Ima that they should use in a stroll the leisure evening that the trouble in the vans had given him. Some drink had been passing as the day wore on, and the heat between the two factions was not better for it. Here and there bickerings were assuming an ugly note.--"Let's get out of it," Percival said. "Come along, Ima, up to the top over there--Bracken Down they call it." It was close upon nine o'clock as they left the Fair. They picked their way along the paths through the tall bracken that gave the place its name--reaching a clearing in the thick growth, by mutual accord they dropped down for a glad rest. Very still and cool here among the fern, the Fair a nest of tossing lights, faint cries and that lion's trump of _oo-oo-oomph_ beneath them; a remote place of silence, and silence communicated itself to them until Ima broke it by her question "Of what are you thinking, Percival?" and to his reply--that he thought of when he should leave them all, and how--told him "Strange then how thoughts run. It was in my mind also." Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! Looking back afterwards, recalling her words, Percival realised how events had run from one to another upon the most brittle thread of hazards. The trouble in the vans had sent him out here with Ima; that was the merest chance; that was the beginning of the thread. Very cool and remote here among the bracken. He had gone back to silence after her last words. It was she who spoke again. "Are you weary of it?" she asked. He was lying at his full length, face downwards, his chin upon his clasped fingers. She sat upright beside him, one knee raised and her hands about it. He turned his cheek to where his chin had been and looked up lazily at her: "Why, no, not weary of it, Ima. I like the life. I've been at it a long time. When the day comes I shall be sorry to go." She was looking straight before her. "A sorry day for us, also," she said. "Will you be sorry, Ima?" "Of course I shall be sorry."