“Didn't I see him do it?” replied the woman.
“Well,” said the doctor, “if you're that big a fool, there's no use to talk to you.”
He turned around in the saddle, gath-tred up the reins, and kicked the horse with his heel. He passed out of sight in the direction of Jerry Black's house. The miller remained standing in the road.
CHAPTER XII
JERRY BLACK'S house was beyond Hickory Mountain, in the direction of the far-off lumber mills.
It was afternoon before the doctor returned. He rode hard in anger. He had gone on to Black's house, determined to make the old man pay him for his visit. But the mountaineer, now that his eye was healed, had refused. The doctor stormed and threatened, but the mountaineer was obdurate. The School-teacher had cured him. He owed nothing. He would pay nothing.
The doctor was compelled to return empty-handed, and he rode hard.
A deep resentment against the man who thus interfered with his practice moved within him. When he came to Hickory Mountain, instead of following the road around by the mill, he took the one leading across through the lands of Nicholas Parks. It was mid-afternoon when he stopped in the road before the Schoolteacher's house. He called. A woman came to the door, her heavy hair the color of wheat straw. The doctor made an exclamation of profound astonishment.