“'Nearer the relatives be to ye, closer you ought to follow the law,' snapped Gid, 'or else ye'll get cheated worse than by a stranger!' “'He didn't seem to be takin' any of that to himself.' “'I've been thinkin' I'd give half the place to Cynthy as a weddin' present, and we could--' “'Why, you've given it all to her, hain't ye?' “Josh had to say yes, of course. Never was any hand to argue his own rights.” “'Well, she has given it to me and it was hers to give. Now, I say, can ye pay board?' “'I haven't any money, Gid.' “'Well, then, ye'll have to get a job somewhere. I don't need a hired man just now. Ye won't starve, Josh. The gov'ment will take care of soldiers,' he sneered. Then he got up and went into the house. “That's the way it was told to me by Joshua Ward himself, Mr. Parker,” concluded the postmaster. “He had to get out. He didn't have any money to fight in law. He didn't want to stir up the thing on poor Cynthy's account. And he was ashamed to have the whole world know how mean a man he had for a brother.” “What has become of this Joshua?” asked the young man, his heart hot with new and fresh bitterness against this unspeakable tyrant of the timber country. “Josh did what so many other heart-broken men have done. He went into the woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pension to live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as you will find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's old Young at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them. They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie.' “They say he's got cats round his place by the hundred. Spends all his time in hunting meat and catching fish for 'em. Well, most everybody is cranky about some notion or others, whether it's in the city or in the woods, and I reckon that Josh has a right to keep cats if he wants to. No one ever sees him out in civilization now. Cynthy's in the asylum. Most people think it's just the trouble of the thing preying on her mind. And then again, I guess that Gid wasn't ever any too good to her. Hard case, ain't it, Mr. Parker?” The postmaster's voice trembled. “It's as sad a story--as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to, Mr. Dodge,” replied the young man, passionately. “I cannot understand how a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamp roughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It is small wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. He needs a lesson.”