know?"

"Well, now, Sarepty, I wouldn't. That Ed'ards boy ain't more of a boy than most boys, I guess. Always seemed a real peaceable little feller. And Ed'ards is kinder touchy, I guess. It might make hard feelin'. 'T wouldn't look well for us to speak, bein' newcomers so. I wouldn't, Sarepty, I wouldn't. Mebbe some time I'll slide in a word, just slide it in kinder easy, if he does it again."

And Mr. Peaslee looked appealingly at his wife through his big spectacles, his eyes looking very large and pathetic through the strong lenses.

"Humph!" said his wife, unmoved. "I ain't afraid of Ed'ards, if you be."

Nor could she be moved from her determination. Mr. Peaslee was vastly disturbed.

But presently he forgot this small annoyance in greater ones. That evening after tea, when he went up to the post-office, he heard that Pete Lamoury had been shot by Jim Edwards, and was now in bed with his wounds. Jim's arrest was predicted. Young Farnsworth, who kept the crockery store, told him the news. And presently Jake Hibbard, the worst "shyster" in the village, shuffled in—noticeable anywhere for his suit of rusty black, his empty sleeve pinned to his coat, the green patch over his eye, and his tobacco-stained lips. He confirmed the report.

"Pete's hurt bad," he said, shaking his head, "hurt bad. I've taken his case. Young Edwards is going to see trouble."

The speech frightened poor Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew them both.

But Mr. Peaslee returned home with dragging feet. Silent and preoccupied all the evening, he went to bed early—but not to sleep. Long he lay awake and tossed, while the Calico Cat wailed on the rear fence—exultant, triumphant, insulting.

And when he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed that he was being prosecuted in court by—was it Jake Hibbard, with the green patch over his eye, or the Calico Cat, with the black patch over hers? He could not tell, study the fantastic, ominous figure of his prosecutor as he would!