“Call ’em off—­call ’em off, sir,” pleaded Davis.  “I’ve been trying to get these men out of your yard.  I don’t approve of Niles.  Let’s have our politics clean, Mr. Thornton.  I’m willing to argue with you.  But don’t let’s have it said outside that Fort Canibas’ politics is run by plug-uglies.”

“He’s right, Thelismer; you’re letting them score a point on you,” protested Presson.

But Thornton had been too grievously wounded that day to be able to listen to peace measures.  He strode down off the porch, shouting commands.  His men were willing, and MacCracken’s defiance gave them the provocation they wanted.

“If it’s fight you’re looking for, you spike-horn stag,” announced the boss, bursting through the press to reach the Jo Quacca champion, “we can open a full assortment, and no trouble to show goods.”

He knocked MacCracken flat, reaching over the heads of the smaller men, and the next moment the Canadians swarmed on the fallen gladiator like flies, lifted him and tossed him into the road.  The rest of the mob escaped.  Niles’s emblematic buck sheep, cropping the grass in the fence corner, was tossed out behind the fugitives.

“I was hoping there’d be a little more cayenne in it,” complained the big boss, scrubbing his knuckles against his belted jacket.

“Come out in the road where it ain’t private ground owned by the old land-grabber,” pleaded MacCracken.  “I’ll meet you somewhere, Ben Kyle, where it’ll have to be a fair stand-up.”  But Kyle gave him no further attention.

“Take the boys into the ram pasture,” directed his employer.  He pointed to a long, low addition in the rear of “The Barracks,” the shelter that served for the housing of the Thorntons’ crews, migratory to or from the big woods.  “I’ll bring out a present.  I guess you’ve got a good, able crew there, Ben.”

Chairman Presson followed the old man back into the mansion.  He was angry, and made his sentiment known, but Thornton was stubborn.

“There may be another way of running this district just at this time, Luke, but this is my way of running it, and I’m going to control that caucus.  So what are you growling about?” He was opening a closet in the wall.

“But you’re starting a scandal—­and they’ll get so stirred up that they’ll put an independent ticket into the field.  You’ll have to fight ’em all over again at the polls.  You’re rasping them too hard.”

“Luke, there are a lot of things you know about down-country politics, and perhaps you know more than I do about politics in general.  But there’s a rule in seafaring that holds good in politics.  If you’re trying to ratch off a lee shore it’s no time to be pulling down your canvas.”

He took a jug out of the closet, and went to the low building.  The chairman followed along, not comforted.