Foxy Pinsent spat on the ground. "We've fixed the ——s this time," he said venomously.
III
The fixing of the Stingo crowd had been Boss Maddox's culminating stroke in the heavy hand he had pressed these many seasons upon those who named Stingo Boss. The bad blood between the two factions of which Japhra had told Percival years before had steadily increased with Boss Maddox's increasing dominance and position. Waxing more and more determined to crush under his rule the little knot of Stingo followers—or to crush them out—Boss Maddox had this day given them an extra twist—and they had made protest by refusing to erect their booths.
A new Fair ground had been marked out here since the last visit of the showmen. A broad stream marked one boundary, bridged only by the highroad bridge a mile up from the new ground. The new ground was small. Maddox's would require it all, the Boss announced. Beyond the stream was common land, free to all. "Yonder, you!" said Boss Maddox to the Stingo crowd. "Yonder, you!" and pointed across the stream with his stick.
It meant going back a mile and a mile down again so as to come to the common land. It meant worse than that, with a discovery that changed the first demur to loud and bitter protest: "No bridge except the highroad bridge? Then how were folk going to get over from the Fair Ground? No bridge? What game's this, Boss?"
"Your game," Boss Maddox told them in his stern and callous way. "Naught to do with me that the Fair Ground's changed. Your game. Get out and play it."
The angry crowd went to Stingo and Stingo to Boss Maddox. Boss Maddox could not refuse parley with Stingo, and gave it where the great pole of his circus marquee was being fixed—his own followers grouped about, enjoying the fun; Stingo's packed in a murmuring throng behind Stingo's broad back.
The interview was very short. "You're going too far, Boss Maddox," Stingo said in his husky whisper. "This ain't fair to the boys. Grant you the ground's too small. After your tent and Pinsent's there the rest should fall by lot. That's fair to all. It was done on the road Boss Parnell's time when you and me were boys."
"It's not done in mine," said Boss Maddox, and his words called up two murmurs—approval and mocking behind him, wrath before.
Stingo waited while it died away, then went close with words for Boss Maddox's private ear. "You've been out to make bad blood these three summers, Maddox," he said. "Have a care of it. I'll not be answerable for my boys here."