"You have trodden on the toes of a tiger when you have trodden on the toes of a Carroll.

Sooner or later you will have to pay for it." No one in the little Kentucky village knew what had become of Arthur Carroll for some time, with the exception of an aunt of Mrs.
Carroll's, who was possessed of some property and who lived there.
She knew, but she told nothing, probably because she had a fierce pride of family.

After years the Carroll girls, Ina and Charlotte, had come back to their father's birthplace and attended a small school some three miles distant from the village, a select young ladies' establishment at which their mother had been educated, and they had visited rather often at their great-aunt Catherine's.

After they had finished school, the great-aunt had paid the bills, although nobody knew it, not even the elderly sisters who kept the school, since the aunt lied and stated that Captain Carroll had sent the money.

Arthur Carroll was called captain then, and nobody knew why, least of all Carroll himself.