The dog that has been kicked and knocked about from puppyhood has in it the accumulated viciousness of his long injuries. Such a beast is ready to run amuck, frothing at the mouth, and Sim Squires was not unlike that dog. He had debated this step through days and nights of hate and terror. He had faltered and vacillated. Now he had come, and the long-repressed passions had broken all his dams of reserve, transforming him, as if with an epilepsy. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were putty-yellow and, had he been a dog instead of a man, his fangs would have been slathered with foam. Heretofore he had spoken hesitantly and cautiously. Now like the epileptic or the mad dog, he burst into a volcanic outpouring in which wild words tumbled upon themselves in a cataract of boiling abandon. His fists were clenched and veins stood out on his face. "I'm ther man thet shot Parish Thornton when he fust come hyar," was his sensational beginning, "but albeit my hand sighted ther gun an' pulled ther trigger hit was another man's damn dirty heart that contrived ther act an' another man's dollars thet paid fer hit. I was plum fo'ced ter do hit by a low-lived feller thet hed done got me whar he wanted me--a feller thet bull-dozed an' dogged me an' didn't suffer me ter call my soul my own--a feller thet I hates an' dreads like I don't nuver expect ter hate Satan in hell!" The informer broke off there and stood a pitiable picture of rage and cowardice, shaken with tearless sobs of unwonted emotion. "Some men ruins women," he rushed on, "an' some ruins other men. _He_ done thet ter me--an' whenever I boggled or balked he cracked his whip anew--an' I wasn't nuthin' but his pore white nigger thet obeyed him. I ached ter kill him an' I didn't even dast ter contrary him. His name's Bas Rowlett!" The recital broke off and the speaker stood trembling from head to foot. Then the hearer who had listened paled to the roots of his shaggy hair and his gargoyle face became a mask of tragic fury. At first Hump Doane did not trust himself to speak and when he did, there was a moment in which the other feared him almost more than he feared Bas Rowlett. For the words of the hunchback came like a roar of thunder and he seemed on the verge of leaping at his visitor's throat. "Afore God, ye self-confessed, murderin' liar," he bellowed, "don't seek ter accuse Bas Rowlett ter me in no sich perjury! He's my kinsman an' my friend--an' I knows ye lies. Ef ye ever lets words like them cross yore lips ergin in my hearin' I'll t'ar ther tongue outen yore mouth with these two hands of mine!" For a space they stood there in silence, the old man glaring, the younger slowly coming back from his mania of emotion as from a trance. Perhaps had Sim sought to insist on his story he would never have been allowed to finish it, but in that little interval of pause Hump Doane's passion also passed, as passions too violent to endure must pass.