It came about in this way. Clarence had retired to the yards, where, secure from observation, he was indulging in a quiet smoke, furtively keeping an eye open for McClintock, whose movements were uncertain, as he knew from sad experience. A high board fence was in front of him, shutting off the yards from the lower end of the town. At his back was a freight car, back of that again were the interlacing tracks, and beyond them a cornfield and Billup's Fork, with its inviting shade of sycamores and willows and its tempting swimming-holes. Suddenly he heard a scrambling on the opposite side of the fence, and ten brown fingers clutched the tops of the boards, then a battered straw hat came on a level with the fingers, at the same instant a bare foot and leg were thrown over the fence, and the owner of the battered straw hat swung himself into view. All this while a dog whined and yelped; then followed a vigorous scratching sound, and presently a small, dilapidated-looking yellow cur squeezed itself beneath the fence. Clarence recognized the intruders. It was Branyon's boy, Augustus, commonly called “Spide,” because of his exceeding slimness and the length of his legs, and his dog Pink. As soon as Branyon's boy saw Clarence he balanced himself deftly on the top of the fence with one hand and shaded his eyes elaborately with the other. An amiable, if toothless, smile curled his lips. When he spoke it was with deep facetiousness. “Hi! come out from behind that roll of paper!” But Clarence said not a word. He puffed away at his cigarette, apparently oblivious of everything save the contentment it gave him, and as he puffed Spide's mouth worked and watered sympathetically. His secret admiration was tremendous. Here was Clarence in actual and undisturbed possession of a whole cigarette. He had to purchase his cigarettes in partnership with some other boy, and go halves on the smoking of them. It made him feel cheap and common. “Say I got one of them coffin-tacks that ain't working?” he inquired. Clarence gazed off up the tracks, ignoring the question and the questioner. Spide's presence was balm to his soul. But as one of the office force of the Buckhom and Antioch he felt a certain lofty reserve to be incumbent upon him. Besides, he and Spide had been engaged in a recent rivalry for Susie Poppleton's affections. It is true he had achieved a brilliant success over his rival, but that a mere school-boy should have ventured to oppose him, a salaried man, had struck him as an unpardonable piece of impertinence for which there could be no excuse.