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Rh to me, a feller stole the ferryboat, but he was a terrible gallus feller."

"Granny," said Ump, "the devil ain't dead by a long shot. There is rapscallions lickin' plates over the Valley that 's meaner than gar-broth. They could show the Old Scratch tricks that would make his eyes stick out so you could knock 'em off with a clapboard."

Danel protested. He pointed out that neither he nor his brother had ever done any man a wrong, and therefore no man would wrong them. It was one of those rules which children discover are strangely not true. He said the ferry was for the good of all, and therefore all would preserve rather than injure that good. Another wise saw, verbally sound, but going to pieces under the pitiless logic of fact.

This man, who had spent his life as one might spend it grinding at a mill, now, when he came to reckon with the natures of men, did it like a child. Ump cut him short. "Danel," he said, "you talk like a meetin'-house. Old Christian cut that cable with a cold chisel, an' Black Malan or Peppers stole