"I can assure you I have not crossed the line fence since you showed me so plainly how you felt toward even innocent trespassers," Hiram rejoined stiffly.
Battick gave him a sidewise glance and said nothing for a moment. He was leaning, smoking his pipe, on his sagging front gate.
"Come on down to the field and take a look at my wheat, Mr. Strong," said the man at last, and only because Hiram saw that it was such an exertion for Yancey Battick to give the invitation did the youth accept.
They walked down past the old house, and Hiram saw that Battick had now made plank shutters to all his lower windows which fitted flush with the frames and were barred on the inside. He certainly had prepared to withstand a siege!
It seemed silly. Surely the man's troubles must have turned his brain. Yet when Hiram considered what Battick had suffered of wrong and disappointment, he did not altogether blame him, sane or not.
"And this wheat is a wonder!" the young farmer thought.
He said it aloud when he came in sight of the field in question. It was not more than an acre in extent, and he presumed it was the best spot on the little farm which Miss Pringle had sold Battick along with the old homestead.
The undulating field of grain was shoulder high and was now all of a wonderful golden hue. Such a field of golden luxuriance Hiram had never before seen. The wheat was of a bearded variety, the awns very stiff and long, while the ear itself was the fullest and longest Hiram had ever seen.
"It is a picture! A picture!" he declared with enthusiasm.
Yancey Battick's leathery face lit up as might the face of an artist who heard his masterpiece praised. His gloomy eyes glowed. There was even a smile trembling on his lips as he said: