The big word stuck in the craw of Buck Heath, who brought his thick eyebrows together. "I've rid horses off and on come twenty-five years," he declared, "and I've rid 'em long enough to know how I want 'em shod. This is my hoss, son, and you do it my way. That straight?" The eye of old Jasper in the rear of the shop grew dim with wistfulness as he heard this talk. He knew Buck Heath; he knew his kind; in his day he would have eaten a dozen men of such rough words and such mild deeds as Buck. But searching the face of Andy, he saw no resentment. Merely a quiet resignation. "Another thing," said Buck Heath, who seemed determined to press the thing to a disagreeable point. "I hear you don't fit your shoes on hot. Well?" "I never touch a hoof with hot iron," replied Andy. "It's a rotten practice." "Is it?" said Buck Heath coldly. "Well, son, you fit my hoss with hot shoes or I'll know the reason why." "I've got to do the work my own way," protested Andy. A spark of hope burned in the slant eyes of Jasper. "Otherwise I can go find another gent to do my shoein'?" inquired Buck. "It looks that way," replied the blacksmith with a nod. "Well," said Buck, whose mildness of the last question had been merely the cover for a bursting wrath that now sent his voice booming, "maybe you know a whole pile, boy--I hear Jasper has give you consid'able education--but what you know is plumb wasted on me. Understand? As for lookin' up another blacksmith, you ought to know they ain't another shop in ten miles. You'll do this job, and you'll do it my way. Maybe you got another way of thinkin'?" There was a little pause. "It's your horse," repeated Andy. "I suppose I can do him your own way." Old Jasper closed his eyes in silent agony. Looking again, he saw Buck Heath grinning with contempt, and for a single moment Jasper touched his gun. Then he remembered that he was seventy years old. "Well, Buck?" he said, coming forward. For he felt that if this scene continued he would go mad with shame. There was a great change in Buck as he heard this voice, a marked respect was in his manner as he turned to Jasper. "Hello, Jas," he said. "I didn't know you was here." "Come over to the saloon, Buck, and have one on me," said Jasper. "I guess Andy'll have your hoss ready when we come back." "Speakin' personal," said Buck Heath with much heartiness, "I don't pass up no chances with no man, and particular if he's Jasper Lanning." He hooked his arm through Jasper's elbow. "Besides, that boy of yours has got me all heated up. Where'd he learn them man-sized words, Jas?"