‘Jasper! I heared his whistle!’

Ellen had not needed to hear, for the fact had spoken directly to her mind in the instant. She took her cloak from the nail behind the door and went quickly out to the roadside where he waited as his custom had been before he went, as if he had never been gone. When they had greeted each other he told her that he had a place to work far to the northwest of the town, the farm owned by a man named Phillips, that he had worked for the past week filling the silo.

‘I got the papers for us to wed, got the papers here in my pocket,’ he said as they stood near the step together. He took the paper from his coat and gave it into her hand and she felt its crisp edges, turning it about in the dim light. But presently his hate and anger rose in a great tide, for he remembered his ruin and his losses.

‘There’s one thing I aim to do afore I go from here,’ he said. ‘J.B. Tarbell made my trouble with his busybody ways. I got the rest about him in town today, and he told a tale and made me out a lie. I aim to thresh his hide afore I leave this-here land for good. I aim to wipe up the road with his dirty rags and I don’t mind if I break a bone or so, but I have no aim to kill. I wouldn’t feel like myself if I went without I tended to his dirty bones and if I hurt more than I aim why that’s his bad luck. He’ll remember this-here night all his life and that’s my aim. He’s at McGill store now, that I know, and I aim to go there or I’ll meet him on the road. All fair and in the open and no ambush, is what I aim. “Take your time and get ready,” I’ll say, “but you got to fight or get busted.” I aim to go to McGill store now. It’s a thing I got to do. My hands are in a twitchet to get fast on his neck.’

Ellen stood in his embrace, gathered to the heart of his hate and the heart of his power, feeling his sinews taut about her, knowing the strength of his anger. ‘Jasper, I don’t want you to do e’er hurt to J.B. Tarbell,’ she said. ‘Jasper, I don’t want it.’

Her pleading increased his anger, for why should she turn from him to defend a lazy tramp? He intended to thresh the scoundrel for his share in the disaster. ‘If you, Ellen, take up for his dirty carcass I’ll crack his skull wide open and tear his heart plumb outen him.’

‘I don’t want you to do e’er hurt toward him, Jasper,’ she pled. ‘I ask you now.’

He walked away toward the garden fence where he stood, bewildered in his rage, but Ellen followed him there and stood beside him. He moved away along the road saying, ‘I aim to do as I said.’