Watts Shipman stood in front of their little friend in scarlet, not touching her, only looking at her. Very slowly and calmly the man motioned toward the cigarette smouldering on the turf; very quietly, almost imperceptibly, he motioned the girl toward it. Minga rose like one in a trance, her eyes fixed unwillingly on those of the lawyer. Putting out one little canvas-shod foot, at first irresolutely, then with sudden vehemence she rubbed the burning cigarette into the ground till all saw that it was extinguished. The girl turned her face in the moonlight. It was broken with rage. "_I hate you. I hate you_," she breathed. Her teeth seemed to chatter with her sudden fury. Watts held out both hands. "I'm sorry," he said simply, "but I think you know that I have done right." The group of youngsters stood silent and amazed in the moonlight. They had beheld a thing as rare in America as lions and tigers; they had witnessed the power of just, quiet and inexorable spiritual authority, compelling obedience. Minga, looking around for sympathy, read no answering rebellion in their eyes. With a strange, an almost animal cry, the girl darted over to Dunstan Bogart. "Oh, Dunce," she choked, almost screaming, "get me away from here--get me away, I tell you!" She turned and dashed out of the circle into the rough mountain road, where they saw her stumbling like a driven thing; Dunstan Bogart, without an instant's hesitation, following her. The boy's eyes were glittering, his head held high in a sort of pride of championship. In a moment their car, tightly braked, was edging cautiously down the rock-hewn road. When at last they reached the levels, the boy suddenly reaching over, put his hand on his companion's, who sat rigid, immovable beside him. Minga looked at him fiercely a second time, with eyes that were hot with tears; she sobbed, "Oh, I'm _wild_." When they pulled up at the Bogarts' garage she drew a long, shuddering breath, and her champion, staring amazedly at her, saw her face drenched with angry crying. "Pshaw!" said Dunstan. "What do you care--that old granny on the mountain top! Why should you care?" "I wish I was home," said Minga, fiercely. "Oh, I wish I was home." The sheltering tenderness of the Mede and Persian would have been very grateful just then to their little daughter. "Minga," said Dunce earnestly, "I could have brained that brute; so could the other chaps. What business had he to--- He'll get his yet." "I hate him, I hate him," repeated the girl viciously. She twisted her handkerchief in her hands and her eyes grew wide with something now unaccountable. While she fought for self-possession, the boy beside her, with a tenderness he hardly understood, stroked the soft, curly head; he uttered clumsy words of comfort. "Any man," said Dunstan, "any man who would do such a thing is a pretty low sort of cur." "He isn't just a cur," objected Minga miserably; "a cur could--couldn't make me f-feel like this."