Examining results at a close range, the boy was quite satisfied—­ hardly a shot had struck without a band three inches in width around the tree.  There was one further test that he had not yet made; but he felt sober now and he drew a bottle from his hip-pocket and pulled at it hard and long.  The old nag grazing above him had paid no more attention to the fusillade than to the buzzing of flies.  He mounted her, and Gray, riding at a gallop to make out what the unearthly racket going on in the hollow was, saw the boy going at full speed in a circle about the tree, firing and yelling, and as Gray himself in a moment more would be in range, he shouted a warning.  Jason stopped and waited with belligerent eyes as Gray rode toward him.

“I say, Jason,” Gray smiled, “I’m afraid my father wouldn’t like that—­you’ve pretty near killed that tree.”

Jason stared, amazed—­

“Fust time I ever heerd of anybody not wantin’ a feller to shoot at a tree.”

Gray saw that he was in earnest and he kept on, smiling.

“Well, we haven’t got as many trees here as you have down in the mountains, and up here they’re more valuable.”

The last words were unfortunate.

“Looks like you keer a heep fer yo’ trees,” sneered the mountain boy with a wave of his pistol toward a demolished woodland; “an’ if our trees air so wuthless, whut do you furriners come down thar and rob us of ’em fer?”

The sneer, the tone, and the bitter emphasis on the one ugly word turned Gray’s face quite red.

“You mustn’t say anything like that to me,” was his answer, and the self-control in his voice but helped make the mountain boy lose his at once and completely.  He rode straight for Gray and pulled in, waving his pistol crazily before the latter’s face, and Gray could actually hear the grinding of his teeth.

“Go git yo’ gun!  Git yo’ gun!”

Gray turned very pale, but he showed no fear.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” he said steadily, “but you must be drunk.”

“Go git yo’ gun!” was the furious answer.  “Go git yo’ gun!”

“Boys don’t fight with guns in this country, but—­”

“You’re a d—­d coward,” yelled Jason.

Gray’s fist shot through the mist of rage that suddenly blinded him, catching Jason on the point of the chin, and as the mountain boy spun half around in his saddle, Gray caught the pistol in both hands and in the struggle both rolled, still clutching the weapon, to the ground, Gray saying with quiet fury: 

“Drop that pistol and I’ll lick hell out of you!”