"Such a drainage," murmured his engineering instinct. "Such a
drainage!" It was Saturday. Even if he had forgotten he would have
known that it must be Saturday when he climbed the bank on the
other side. Many horses were hitched under the trees, and here and
there was a farm-wagon with fragments of paper, bits of food and
an empty bottle or two lying around. It was the hour when the
alcoholic spirits of the day were usually most high. Evidently
they were running quite high that day and something distinctly was
going on "up town." A few yells--the high, clear, penetrating yell
of a fox-hunter--rent the air, a chorus of pistol shots rang out,
and the thunder of horses' hoofs started beyond the little slope
he was climbing. When he reached the top, a merry youth, with a
red, hatless head was splitting the dirt road toward him, his
reins in his teeth, and a pistol in each hand, which he was
letting off alternately into the inoffensive earth and toward the
unrebuking heavens--that seemed a favourite way in those mountains
of defying God and the devil--and behind him galloped a dozen
horsemen to the music of throat, pistol and iron hoof.

The fiery-headed youth's horse swerved and shot by. Hale hardly
knew that the rider even saw him, but the coming ones saw him afar
and they seemed to be charging him in close array. Hale stopped
his horse a little to the right of the centre of the road, and
being equally helpless against an inherited passion for
maintaining his own rights and a similar disinclination to get out
of anybody's way--he sat motionless. Two of the coming horsemen,
side by side, were a little in advance.

"Git out o' the road!" they yelled. Had he made the motion of an
arm, they might have ridden or shot him down, but the simple