Hubbard glowered and reached for his hat.
“I’ll find out,” he snarled.
Walking rapidly, he crossed a field of wheat stubble, keeping his eyes fixed sharply ahead. It was dusk, but presently, at the northern extremity of his premises, he made out the figure of a man.
“Hey, Harper!” he shouted. “You let that fence be.”
He ran forward swiftly.
The men were now separated by two wire-strand fences that paralleled each other only three feet apart. These fences, matching one another for a distance of about two hundred yards—each farmer claiming title to the fence on the side farthest from his own—represented the basis of the litigation over the boundary claim that had gone on between them for four years.
The odd spectacle of the twin fences had come to be one of the show places in the county. It had been photographed and shown in agricultural journals.
“I don’t trust ye, Harper,” announced Hubbard, breathing hard. “You got the inside track with Jedge Bissell, an’ the two of you are a-schemin’ to beat me.”
A laugh broke from the other.
“I’ll beat you, all right,” he said coolly. “But it won’t be because Judge Bissell is unfair.”