"Friend!" she exclaimed scornfully. "You're a treacherous dog and you don't deserve to have a friend on earth. If you were a man you'd keep off this place and quit bothering me. You know that Jud's away and you are coward enough to take the advantage. I want you to _go_--go at once!" "You ain't got no right to call me a coward," he growled. "Do you think it brave to say what you did about me and to make your boasts down at the toll-gate? Is that the way a man acts?" "Somebody's been lyin' to you----" he began confusedly. "No! You did say it and there's no use lying to me. I loathe you worse than a snake, and I wouldn't trust you as far. 'Gene Crawley, I've got a loaded shotgun in the house. So help me God, I'll kill you if you don't keep away from me." She was in deadly earnest and he knew it. The rage of despair burned away every vestige of the brutal confidence in which he had intruded upon her little domain. "I'm not such a bad feller, Justine----" he began, with a mixture of defiance and humbleness in his voice. It was now dark and they were alone, but she commanded the situation despite her quaking heart. "You lie, 'Gene Crawley!" she exclaimed. "You are a drunken brute, and you don't deserve to be spoken to by any woman. You are not fit to talk to--to--to the hogs!" He clenched his fists and an oath sprang to his lips. "I've a notion to----" he hissed, but could not complete the threat. The suppressed words were "brain you." "I expect you to," she cried. "Why don't you do it, you coward?" He glared at her for a moment, baffled. Suddenly his eyes fell, his shoulders trembled, and his voice broke. "I wouldn't hurt you for the whole world, Justine." He turned and walked away from her without another word. 'Gene Crawley never touched liquor after that night. "Not fit to talk to the hogs," "a drunken brute," were sentences that curdled in his heart, freezing forever the lust of liquor. He was beginning to crave the respect of a woman. Deep in his soul lay the hope that if he could only cease drinking he might win more than respect from her. CHAPTER X. THE CLOTHES AND THE MAN. It was six weeks before Jud had saved enough money to make the rather expensive trip to Glenville. In that time he found many experiences, novel and soul-trying. The busy city clashed against the rough edges of this unsophisticated youth and quickly wore them off. By the time he was ready to board the train for a two-days' stay with Justine he had acquired what it had taken other men years to learn. Keen and quick-witted, he easily fell into the ways of strangers, putting forward as good a foot as any country-bred boy who ever went to Chicago.