“Then I shall take these horses up to our barn. You can come and settle the matter with Mrs. Atterson—unless you wish to pay me two dollars here and now,” said the young farmer, his voice carrying clearly to where the man stood upon the rising ground above him.
“Why, you young whelp!” roared Dickerson, suddenly starting down the slope.
But Hiram Strong neither moved nor showed fear. Somehow, this sturdy young fellow, in the high laced boots, with his flannel shirt open at the throat, raw as was the day, his sleeves rolled back to his elbows, was a figure to make even a more muscular man than Sam Dickerson hesitate.
“Pete!” exclaimed the farmer, harshly, still eyeing Hiram. “Run up to the house and bring my shotgun. Be quick about it.”
Hiram said never a word, and the horses, yoked together, began to crop the short grass springing upon the bank of the water-hole.
“You'll find out you're fooling with the wrong man, you whippersnapper!” promised Dickerson.
“You can pay me two dollars and I'll mend the fence; or you can mend the fence and we'll call it square,” said Hiram, slowly, and evenly. “I'm a boy, but I'm not to be frightened with a threat——”
Pete's long legs brought him flying back across the fields. Nothing he had done in a long while pleased him quite as much as this errand.
Hiram turned, jerked at the horses' bridle-reins, turned them around, and with a sharp slap on the nigh one's flank, sent them both trotting up into the Atterson pasture.
“Stop that, you rascal!” cried Dickerson, grabbing the gun from his hopeful son, and losing his head now entirely. “Bring that team back!”