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“Well,” remarked Bard, seizing his carving knife, and plunging his fork deep into the roast, “I guess this just about finishes the pig, don’t it?”

“Yep. You’ll have to kill to-morrow,” the woman replied, as she reached for the hired man’s tea cup. She noticed he was nibbling at an onion, which he had taken from his pocket. “Ain’t you afraid yer best girl will go back on you, Snowball?” she teased.

“Nope,” he said with a weak-minded grin. “I d-don’t never worry much about the women folks, so I don’t!” He was a small-bodied, but wiry, individual of perhaps forty-five, with a scranny, wry neck and a burnished face of unsymmetrical design. The cervical deformity tilted his head sidewise and gave him an appearance of being in a constant attitude of listening, as if an unseen, but shorter, person were always beside him whispering in his ear. When he spoke he snapped his eyelids as if he alertly appreciated the full significance of his environment, and was perpetually on guard against the wiles of his associates.