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"A feller showed me yore office. I prized open the winder an' got in last night."

"Why in the worl' didn't you come to my house?" cried Mr. Sandage, with outraged hospitality.

Abner's face twitched. "I didn't want nobody to see me; they"—he nodded in the direction of Irontown—"they think they run me out of the county—" his eyes narrowed vengefully—"but, by God, they ain't! I'm goin' to heel myse'f, slip back down there, and kill a lot o'them damn skunks, an' then I'll prove a alibi."

Mr. Sandage was horrified. "You don't mean that, Abner!"

"Yes, I do. I want you to len' me a couple o' guns. I lost mine the night they beat me up. But I'm goin' to slip back down there an' git that damn Perfesser Overall an' Tom Northcutt—I know a lot of 'em." Abner nodded grimly. "They're welcome to that skin they tuk off'n me, damn 'em!"

"But, look here, Abner, you kain't do that, my boy." cried Mr. Sandage. "My Lord, you don't want to be like old Rodman Sikes, who spent his whole life killin' off a gang of bushwhackers."

"Jim, you ain't never been beat up like I have," said the youth in a monotone.

Sandage began to realize that the boy he had known was indeed gone and he had a man to deal with, a vengeful, obstinate man, but still one with courage and fighting ability, and this aroused a certain admiration and satisfaction in him. He began arguing with the youth.

"Look here, Abner, whyn't you git the law on them fellers?"

"Law hell!"

The trustee knew that his foster-son was right on this point. He tried another tack.

"Now, look here, if you've been foolin' aroun' Perry Nothcutt's gal, didn't he have a kind of right to beat you up an' drive you out o' the county—now, man, to man, didn't he?"