Down the road it came, bumping noisily. The driver was a young man, with a dashing air and a merry, kindly eye. He was sitting on the extreme edge of the wagon-box, his feet swinging in the dust, and his hat stuck rakishly on the side of his head, and was giving forth to the echoing landscape a long, tragic "Come-all-ye" in an uproariously joyful voice: "_Come all yez true-born shanty byes, Whoever yous may be, I'd have yez pay atten-ti-on, To hear what I've got for to say, Concerning six Can-a-jen byes, Who manfully and brave, Did break the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks, And met a wat-e-ry grave!_" "Whoa! Hold up!" shouted John McIntyre, as the horses' heads appeared beyond the line of timber. "What do you mean by making such a row on the road at night and disturbing peaceable citizens?" The driver pulled up, and the two eyed each other with that air of severity which men affect when they are afraid of displaying the fact that their love for each other is deep and tender. "And what do you mean by holdin' up a peaceable citizen on the Queen's highway like this?" demanded the younger man, threateningly. "You seem to be mighty gay about something. Another letter from Annie Laurie?" "Aw, go an' choke yourself! No, siree. It'd be more like it if I was weepin' instead o' singin'. I bet you'd have been, if you'd heard the news I did to-day. Who d'ye suppose is to be your next-door neighbor?" "I don't know." "Satan Symonds--no less!" John McIntyre's fine, gentle face expressed only surprised interest. "Well, let him come. He won't eat us." "Won't he, though?" cried the young wagoner, vigorously. "He's got his eye on your farm, John McIntyre; yes, and one claw, don't forget that! I'd rather have the devil himself runnin' the next farm to me." The man in the field leaned his bare, brown arms on the top of the fence-rails and surveyed his friend with an indulgent smile. "I'm afraid he's closer than that to most of us already, Martin," he said, shaking his head. "Don't you worry about Joe Symonds. Why, we were boys at school together. There's no harm in him." The younger man looked at his friend with mingled admiration and impatience in his eyes. "Lookee here, John, you're far too easy. You take a warning in time, and don't let that sneak get his claws any further into your wool than you can help. I'd shut off every bit of dealings with him. He's as sharp as a weasel. Don't you forget that he's got a hold on you already." "Tuts! That's nothing. I'll pay that next fall, if the crops turn out only half as well as they look now." The other shook his head. "John McIntyre," he said, with affectionate severity, "you're too honest for this world. Symonds belongs to a crooked stock. His father before him was crooked, and his grandfather was crookeder, and he's the crookedest o' the whole bunch. I--I"--he hesitated, boyishly--"I hate to go away thinkin' he's livin' next farm to you--that's all."