And Lige knew--Lige, he says it's legal, but I say it's just common stealing." Hendricks moistened his lips and sat with mute face gazing at the colonel.

The colonel went on, "And now the farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no pitch hot!" Hendricks cleared his throat and began, "Well, Colonel--I don't know; of course I--" The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and cried, "Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the grass--you do know--you do know, sir.

You know that to hold up the farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not to let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell for ten dollars an acre land that is worth three times that, is stealing, and so does John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so does Martin Culpepper know that, and the farmers are finding it out--my neighbours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir--to rob, I may say--they know what it is." The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing before the young man, shaking his head furiously.

Young Hendricks was engaged in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and just as he started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by the horn and was shaking it into submission, cried: "Yes, sir, Robert, that's what I said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact.
And," he began as he sat down and sighed, "what galls me most of all, Robert, is that John laughs at me.

Here you've been gagging and gulping and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I know--yes, Robert, I'm dead sure, I may say, that you're all right; but John giggles--giggles, sir, snickers in point of fact, as though he had done something smart in getting me to go out among my old soldier friends and rob 'em of their homesteads.