"I don't know."
"Satan Symonds—no less!"
John McIntyre's fine, gentle face expressed only surprised interest. "Well, let him come. He won't eat us."
"Won't he, though?" cried the young wagoner, vigorously. "He's got his eye on your farm, John McIntyre; yes, and one claw, don't forget that! I'd rather have the devil himself runnin' the next farm to me."
The man in the field leaned his bare, brown arms on the top of the fence-rails and surveyed his friend with an indulgent smile.
"I'm afraid he's closer than that to most of us already, Martin," he said, shaking his head. "Don't you worry about Joe Symonds. Why, we were boys at school together. There's no harm in him."
The younger man looked at his friend with mingled admiration and impatience in his eyes. "Lookee here, John, you're far too easy. You take a warning in time, and don't let that sneak get his claws any further into your wool than you can help. I'd shut off every bit of dealings with him. He's as sharp as a weasel. Don't you forget that he's got a hold on you already."
"Tuts! That's nothing. I'll pay that next fall, if the crops turn out only half as well as they look now."
The other shook his head. "John McIntyre," he said, with affectionate severity, "you're too honest for this world. Symonds belongs to a crooked stock. His father before him was crooked, and his grandfather was crookeder, and he's the crookedest o' the whole bunch. I—I"—he hesitated, boyishly—"I hate to go away thinkin' he's livin' next farm to you—that's all."
"Well, then, why don't you rent the River Farm yourself," said John McIntyre, banteringly, "instead of running off West like this? You and that little Ontario girl would run things just fine down there, and show Mary and me how to do it right."