doubly heinous now that he had seen Miss Taylor.

His first impulse was to halt the Negro then and there and tell him a
few plain truths. But he did not feel quarrelsome at the moment, and
there was, after all, nothing very tangible to justify a berating. The
fellow's impudence was sure to increase, and then! So he merely reined
his horse to the better part of the foot-path and rode on.

Bles, too, was thinking. He knew the well-dressed man with his
milk-white face and overbearing way. He would expect to be greeted with
raised hat but Bles bit his lips and pulled down his cap firmly. The
axe, too, in some indistinct way felt good in his hand. He saw the horse
coming in his pathway and stepping aside in the dust continued on his
way, neither looking nor speaking.

So they passed each other by, Mr. Cresswell to town, Bles to the swamp,
apparently ignorant of each other's very existence. Yet, as the space
widened between them, each felt a more vindictive anger for the other.

How dares the black puppy to ignore a Cresswell on the highway? If this
went on, the day would surely come when Negroes felt no respect or fear
whatever for whites? And then--my God! Mr. Cresswell struck his mare a
vicious blow and dashed toward town.

The black boy, too, went his way in silent, burning rage. Why should he
be elbowed into the roadside dust by an insolent bully? Why had he not
stood his ground? Pshaw! All this fine frenzy was useless, and he knew
it. The sweat oozed on his forehead. It wasn't man against man, or he
would have dragged the pale puppy from his horse and rubbed his face in
the earth. It wasn't even one against many, else how willingly, swinging