“Don’t talk like that,” said Gordon, reddening to the roots of his hair. “You are welcome to the house and the land, and you know it. I only ask you to let my game alone.”
“Your game?” retorted Jocelyn. “They’re wild creatures, put there by Him who fashioned them.”
“Nonsense!” said Gordon, dryly. “My land is my own. Would you shoot the poultry in my barn-yard?”
“If I did,” cried Jocelyn, with eyes ablaze, “I’d not be in your debt, young man. You are walking on my father’s land. Ask your father why! Yes, go back to the city and hunt him up at his millionaire’s club and ask him why you are driving Tom Jocelyn off of his old land!”
“My father died three years ago,” said Gordon, between his set teeth. “What do you mean?”
Jocelyn looked at him blankly.
“What do you mean?” repeated Gordon, with narrowing eyes.
Jocelyn stood quite still. Presently he looked down at the fish on the ground and moved it with his foot. Then Gordon asked him for the third time what he meant, and Jocelyn, raising his eyes, answered him: “With the dead all quarrels die.”
“That is not enough!” said Gordon, harshly. “Do you believe my father wronged you?”
“He’s dead,” said Jocelyn, as though speaking to himself.