quit pestering me."

The big fellow sneered. "I 'lowed you might change your mind 'bout
that some day. Jim ain't goin' t' say nothin' t' me, an' if he
did, words don't break no bones. I'm a heap th' best man in this
neck o' th' woods, an' your Paw knows hit. You know it, too."

Under his look, the blood rushed to the girl's face in a burning
blush. In spite of her anger she dropped her eyes, and, without
attempting a reply, turned to her work.

A moment later, Mr. Lane entered the room; a single glance at his
daughter's face, a quick look at Wash Gibbs, as the bully sat
following with wolfish eyes every movement of the girl, and Jim
stepped quietly in front of his guest. At the same moment, Sammy
left the house for a bucket of water, and Wash turned toward his
host with a start to find the dark faced man gazing at him with a
look that few men could face with composure. Without a word, Jim's
right hand crept stealthily inside his hickory shirt, where a
button was missing.

For a moment Gibbs tried to return the look. He failed. Something
he read in the dark face before him--some meaning light in those
black eyes--made him tremble and he felt, rather than saw, Jim's
hand resting quietly now inside the hickory shirt near his left
arm pit. The big man's face went white beneath the tan, his eyes
wavered and shifted, he hung his head and shuffled his feet
uneasily, like an overgrown school-boy brought sharply to task by
the master.