"I ain't deef," John flashed at him. "I wanted to see what _'the
hell'_--to use your words--you'd do about it. You think because you
are in a rig o' that sort, Pete Allen, you can make men an' women
break the'r necks to git out o' your way. If you had touched me with
that thing I'd have stomped the life out o' you. I know you. You used
to split rails an' hoe an' plow, barefooted over in Dogwood. 'White
trash,' the niggers called your folks. You've been in town just long
enough to make you think you can trample folks down like so many
tumble-bugs."

"Well, you have no right to block the road up," the driver said, quite
taken aback, his color mounting to his cheeks. "There is a law--"

"I don't care a dang about your law!" Webb broke in. "I'm law-abidin',
but when a law is passed givin' an upstart like you the right to make
a decent man jump out of your way, like a frost-bitten grasshopper,
I'll break it. The minute a skunk like you buys a machine on credit
an' starts out he thinks he owns the earth."

Still flushed, the man grumbled out something inarticulately and
started on his way.

"I hit 'im purty hard," John said, as Mostyn rejoined him, "but if
thar is anything on earth that makes me rippin' mad it is the way
fellers like that look an' act."

They found thirty or forty men, women, and children at the store
awaiting the coming of the preacher. The building was a long, one-
story frame structure made of undressed planks whitewashed. It had a
porch in front which was filled with barrels, chicken-coops, and heavy