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“What’s that, Dad?” William asked.

Bard leaned eagerly forward and clenched his fists. “I’d a’ got that prig of a woman cornered up between me and the end of the room, and I’d a’ choked her till she was green in the face, and then I’d a’ handed over all her lap-dogs an’ yellow parasols and I’d a’ shot her right out onto the road!”

“You’re damned right,” approved McBratney.

“You bet,” agreed William Bard.

The humor of his master’s threat had evidently appealed very forcibly to Snowball, for, after a few seconds, he emitted the queer suction sound, heralding the termination of his period of mirth.

A few minutes later they all left the kitchen for the dairy shed, where the cows waited to be milked. Mauney, disabled for milking, pumped water and carried pails. He noticed McBratney conversing in low tones with his brother, who occasionally turned up the cow’s teat to sprinkle Rover with a warm spray of milk.

When the milking was finished, the cows were wandering slowly back toward the pasture and William had driven off toward Beulah with his companion, Mauney entered the stable and unfastened the latch of a box-stall.