But suddenly the light in Dan's eyes flashed red.
"No!" he cried, "that is not all!" With a long step he reached the side of the buggy.
The next moment the Judge found himself on the ground.
"Wh—what do you mean sir?" he roared. "Take your hands off of me!"
Dan's voice was trembling with rage, but he spoke deliberately.
"You unspeakable cur, I have felt sorry for you because of your warped and twisted nature; because you seemed so incapable of being anything more than you are. I have given you a chance to act like a man, and—you—you laugh at me! You escaped punishment for your theft from that poor widow. You have escaped from God knows how many such crimes. But now, in the name of the people you have tricked and robbed under the cover of business, in the name of the people you have slandered and ruined under cover of the church, I'm going to give you what such a contemptible rascal as you are, deserves."
The Judge was a large man, in the prime of life, but his natural weapons of warfare were those of the fox, the coyote and their kin. Cornered, he made a show of resistance, but he was as a child in the hands of the young giant, who thrashed him until he lay half-senseless, moaning and groaning in pain, on the ground.
When Dan at last drew back the Doctor, who through it all had remained quietly seated on the fence—an interested spectator—climbed down from his position and came slowly forward. Looking the Judge over with a professional eye he turned to Dan with a chuckle.
"You made a mighty good job of it, lad; a mighty good job. Lord, how I envied you! Chuck him into his buggy now, and I'll take him home. You can follow in our rig."
So they went home in the dusk of the evening. And the old Doctor told around town a tale of how the Judge had met with an accident at Wheeler's Ford that would keep him in the house for quite a spell.