through country lanes and he loved her. The wound was healed; it had lost
its sting a score of years ago, but his mood was still tender, and as he
stared at the pile of papers on his desk, thoughts of C. & S.C. were far
away. At last, however, the consciousness of this came upon him and he
thought, "I reckon I need exercise," and then a moment later, "It'll be
quite a trick, though, to find a horse that's up to my weight."

He had hardly taken up his work when Pease appeared and told him that a
man wanted to see him. The man was a deputy sheriff, and he came to serve
on James Weeks the injunction which Judge Black had signed in Porter's
office two hours before.

It may be that his earlier mood had something to do with it; for as Jim
laid the paper on his desk, his thoughts went back half a century to one
of his boyhood days. It was a summer afternoon, and Jim and some of his
friends had been in swimming; somehow it became necessary for him to fight
Thomas Ransome. Jim had never been in a fight before, and he had no
theories whatever, but he found that he could hit hard, and it never
occurred to him to try to parry. Thomas was forced to give back steadily
until his farther retreat was cut off by the river and he saw that more
vigorous tactics were required. With utter disregard of the laws of war he
drove a vicious kick at Jim's stomach. Had it landed, its effect would
probably have been serious, but Jim, for the first time since the fight
began, stepped back, and with both hands gave additional impetus to the
foot, so that Thomas kicked much higher than he had intended, and losing
his balance, he toppled into the river with a very satisfactory splash.

Jim smiled at the recollection and then read the injunction again to see
if it were possible to catch Porter's foot. His eye rested long on the
sputtery signature at the bottom, and he thought, "I might have known that