"No."

"Why did Abner say to Asa yesterday, 'It's not on account of her, it's
on account of _her_'?"

"I don't know."

"G'-by, Mary. G'-by." It was so Scattergood always ended a conversation,
abruptly, but as one became accustomed to it it was neither abrupt nor
discourteous.

"Thank you," said Mary, and she went away obediently.

As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered
into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn.

"Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked.

"Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff.

"Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss
might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do
what's needed to be done?"

"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts.

Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the
stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare.
He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap,"
he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out