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lashed his whip, spat out the vilest invectives, and struggled on desperately. Why he should work so fiercely, why objurgate so filthily and indecently, he had not the faintest idea. All the teamsters did the same thing and none of them had the slightest notion why they were so stirred and so bitter.

At one o'clock Saturday afternoon, the construction gang were to be paid off at the Irontown bank. Railroad Jones had arranged for this bank to finance his operations, and the weekly payrolls were to be distributed from the teller's window. So a little past noon on Saturday all the construction gang tramped into the village. They came in groups and pairs with here and there a surly or a meditative fellow walking alone. As the men tramped in they jested among themselves with the peculiar sardonic thrusts of the hill people; each witticism was meant, very cheerfully, to wound its object as much as possible. Some of the boys began annoying others about certain disreputable women of the village. Somebody shouted at Abner in this fashion, and a terrible embarrassment swept over the youth, but to his immense relief the subject was not pressed. The talk of the crowd swung to the pay they were going to receive. Zed Parrum announced in a loud voice that he didn't believe the crowd would get a cent because they stood a lot better chance of drawing a pair of Perry Northcutt's eye teeth than a dollar out of his bank.

Laughter crackled up and down the street at this hit. It inspired other efforts. Such gloomy predictions began to shake Abner's faith in the payroll. He turned to Tug Beavers, with whom he was walking.

"Tug, d'reckon we're goin' to git anything on these?" He shook his pay check.

"Hell, yes," asserted Tug broadly, "it's either the money or a cussin' out with me."

Now Abner had not yet reached that stage of hill culture where a cursing out represented a distinct spiritual asset and could be accepted as quid pro quo for other and more material values, so he asked very innocently: