Leonard was a strapping brown fellow of twenty-five, with big hands and big feet, white teeth, and flashing eyes full of energy.  He and his father and two brothers not only worked their own big farm, but rented a quarter section from Nat Wheeler.  They were master farmers.  If there was a dry summer and a failure, Leonard only laughed and stretched his long arms, and put in a bigger crop next year.  Claude was always a little reserved with Leonard; he felt that the young man was rather contemptuous of the hap-hazard way in which things were done on the Wheeler place, and thought his going to college a waste of money.  Leonard had not even gone through the Frankfort High School, and he was already a more successful man than Claude was ever likely to be.  Leonard did think these things, but he was fond of Claude, all the same.

At sunset the car was speeding over a fine stretch of smooth road across the level country that lay between Frankfort and the rougher land along Lovely Creek.  Leonard’s attention was largely given up to admiring the faultless behaviour of his engine.  Presently he chuckled to himself and turned to Claude.

“I wonder if you’d take it all right if I told you a joke on Bayliss?”

“I expect I would.”  Claude’s tone was not at all eager.

“You saw Bayliss today?  Notice anything queer about him, one eye a little off colour?  Did he tell you how he got it?”

“No.  I didn’t ask him.”

“Just as well.  A lot of people did ask him, though, and he said he was hunting around his place for something in the dark and ran into a reaper.  Well, I’m the reaper!”

Claude looked interested.  “You mean to say Bayliss was in a fight?”

Leonard laughed.  “Lord, no!  Don’t you know Bayliss?  I went in there to pay a bill yesterday, and Susie Gray and another girl came in to sell tickets for the firemen’s dinner.  An advance man for this circus was hanging around, and he began talking a little smart,—­nothing rough, but the way such fellows will.  The girls handed it back to him, and sold him three tickets and shut him up.  I couldn’t see how Susie thought so quick what to say.  The minute the girls went out Bayliss started knocking them; said all the country girls were getting too fresh and knew more than they ought to about managing sporty men and right there I reached out and handed him one.  I hit harder than I meant to.  I meant to slap him, not to give him a black eye.  But you can’t always regulate things, and I was hot all over.  I waited for him to come back at me.  I’m bigger than he is, and I wanted to give him satisfaction.  Well, sir, he never moved a muscle!  He stood there getting redder and redder, and his eyes watered.  I don’t say he cried, but his eyes watered.  ‘All right, Bayliss,’ said I.  ’Slow with your fists, if that’s your principle; but slow with your tongue, too,—­especially when the parties mentioned aren’t present.’”

“Bayliss will never get over that,” was Claude’s only comment.