They ate a hearty and a cheerful breakfast, and Jimmie prepared for instant departure. "I may be gone all day," he announced, "It'd be just like the scalawag to fool me and go around the other way." "It's probably a stray dog, anyway," she teased after him as he started up the hill. Jimmie went over the brow of the hill out of sight of the house. When he was safe from observation he hid his gun securely in the hollow hole of a tree, and, skirting away around the hills out of sight of the sugar camp and the road, he made his way as fast as his legs could carry him toward Jethniah Gamblin's place of business. He found the United States post office closed and locked at nine o'clock in the morning, and there was no one in sight. He banged and rattled roughly at the door, for in the course of his morning's walk he had worked up a grievance against Jethniah and by this time he was blaming him for everything that had happened. There was a cautious movement within the store and Jimmie saw a head appear near the window from an ambuscade of flour sacks. The door was slowly opened, a matter of inches, and Jimmie squeezed his way in. "What kind of a--?" Jimmie began upon his argument. But Jethniah shut and bolted the door and retreated to an inner citadel behind the barricade of post office boxes. "What's the idea?" Jimmie inquired. "Have you been tapping the postal revenues, or is it merely the county sheriff that's coming for you." But Mr. Gamblin had no heart for badinage. He sat down heavily and groaned: "Just like a post in the mud!" Jimmie, looking around, saw that the door which led from the store into Mr. Gamblin's living establishment was shut and barred. He guessed, correctly, that the store was a fortress under close siege. There was an old overcoat and a store blanket over the back of Jethniah's chair. It was fairly deducible that Mr. Gamblin had spent the night in that chair. The old man's face bore out the conclusion. Wardwell suddenly found that his indignation at the old man over yesterday's bargain had disappeared. He was convinced that the buying of the horse from Augusta had brought down vengeance on Jethniah's head, from "that bitter voiced old woman," as he recalled her. Certainly Mr. Gamblin did look punished. "I came down about the horse," he said, as Jethniah offered no explanation of the situation. "I don't believe you were very keen on the bargain, anyway. And the fact is that my wife misses the horse a whole lot. Of course, a deal's a deal. But if I put it that my wife didn't know how badly she was going to miss her pet, and if I offer you ten dollars over what you paid for him I thought maybe you might let me have the horse back." Mr. Gamblin struggled to his feet and ejaculated: