The top of the buggy which the man drove was down flat, for it was a summer morning, and he loved sunshine and air. He drew his horse up to a standstill, and turning in his seat looked back at the fleeing twain, now rapidly diminishing in a cloud of gray dust. The glimpse which he had caught of the two as they passed was almost as brief as that one gets of a landscape on a night of storm during a lightning flash. He thought he knew the colt--surely there was none other like it anywhere, and he was confident he knew the rider, although her face was white, terror-stricken, tear-stained. Whether she had recognized him or not he could not say. Her haunting eyes had looked straight at him for a moment, but no gleam of understanding had lighted them. Now they were gone; the distant hoof-beats had died. The man turned half way around, and looked again. This time his eyes swept the home of Devil Marston and its vicinity. As he looked his mouth grew hard, his eyes drooped at the corners, and the muscles of his cheeks ridged themselves under his skin. He understood. He slowly and deliberately got out, led his horse to the roadside and carefully hitched it, then passed through the open farm gate and strode briskly on. Two minutes later John Glenning, with folded arms, stood fronting Devil Marston between the cedars. The hound had disappeared. The two men were absolutely alone. There was no word of greeting exchanged between them. Each knew that civilities would be superfluous and out of place. They simply met as two things of primeval creation might meet, and the feelings which governed each of them in that moment were wholly savage. In every one this old strain is running: animal first, then soul, and mind, and heart. Mere being first; then civilization, with its accessories of education and refinement. Two animals met between the cedars; the mask had been flung aside. They had come face to face moved entirely by the world-old battle lust. The one naturally evil; the other made so because he knew that in some way the woman he loved had been mistreated and abused. Words were out of place and unnecessary, but a sense of right and decency crept into Glenning's seething brain, and made him speak. "I want to apologize for striking you on the street in Macon." The sentence was cold as ice, and formal. There was no feeling in it. The man to whom it was addressed stood with arms hanging loosely at his sides, his face sullen and crafty. He did not reply. "You know I had to do it," went on the steel-like voice. "I regret the necessity more than I apologize for the blow. You deserved that. Let it pass." Marston spoke. "What in the devil do you want here? Begone, before I put the dogs on you!" "I am here to give you a thrashing you won't forget as long as you live! You are a coward and a cur!"