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The old German woman came in at length, bringing some cakes and a bowl of milk, smiling broadly and hospitably as she waddled forward.

"Ach! Goot!" he said, smacking his lips over the pleasant draught.

"Wo ist ihre goot mann?" he inquired, ready for business.

III

WHEN Grant came in at noon, Mrs. McLane met him at the door with a tender smile on her face.

"Where’s Howard, Grant?"

"I don’t know," he replied in a tone that implied "I don’t care. "

The dim eyes clouded with quick tears.

"Ain’t you seen him?"

"Not since nine o’clock. "

"Where d’you think he is?"

"I tell yeh I don’t know. He’ll take care of himself; don’t worry. "

He flung off his hat and plunged into the wash basin. His shirt was wet with sweat and covered with dust of the hay and fragments of leaves. He splashed his burning face with the water, paying no further attention to his mother. She spoke again, very gently, in reproof:

"Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so?"

"I don’t stand out against him," he replied harshly, pausing with the towel in his hands. His eyes were hard and piercing. "But if he expects me to gush over his coming back, he’s fooled, that’s all. He’s left us to paddle our own canoe all this while, and, so far as I’m concerned, he can leave us alone hereafter. He looked out for his precious hide mighty well, and now he comes back here to play big gun and pat us on the head. I don’t propose to let him come that over me. "

Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to say any more, but she inquired about Howard of the old hired man.

"He went off down the valley. He ‘n’ Grant had s’m words, and he pulled out down toward the old farm. That’s the last I see of ‘im. "

Laura took Howard’s part at the table. "Pity you can’t be decent," she said, brutally direct as usuaL "You treat Howard as if he was a–a–I do’ know what. "

"wrn you let me alone?"

"No, I won’t. If you think I’m going to set by an’ agree to your bullyraggin’ him, you’re mistaken. It’s a shame! You’re mad ’cause he’s succeeded and you ain’t. He ain’t to blame for his brains. If you and I’d had any, we’d ‘a’ succeeded, too. It ain’t our fault and it ain’t his; so what’s the use?"

There was a look came into Grant’s face that the wife knew. It meant bitter and terrible silence. He ate his dinner without another word.

It was beginning to cloud up. A thin, whitish, ‘all-pervasive vapor which meant rain was dimming the sky, and be forced his hands to their utmost during the afternoon in order to get most of the down hay in before the rain came. He was pitching hay up into the barn when Howard came by just before one o’clock.

It was windless there. The sun fell through the white mist with undiminished fury, and the fragrant hay sent up a breath that was hot as an oven draught. Grant was a powerful man, and there was something majestic in his action as he rolled the huge flakes of hay through the door. The sweat poured from his face like rain, and he was forced to draw his dripping sleeve across his face to clear away the blinding sweat that poured into his eyes.

Howard stood and looked at him in silence, remembering how often he had worked there in that furnace heat, his muscles quivering, cold chills running over his flesh, red shadows dancing before his eyes.