XIX
THE MYTH
Jake's leadership had received a severe blow, and Bob could hardly believe that he would be able to muster a company again. But Hogan's vindictiveness and persistence rendered it probable that he would not rest in his present ridiculous position without making an effort to redeem himself, even if he had to act with a small party.
"You see," Bob explained to Mason that Saturday night, "Jake's got the most p'ison kind uv hold-on you ever seed. He's shore to try't over, fust or last."
"He won't let you fool him again," said Mason.
Bob smiled and picked up a chip, which he began to whittle as an aid to reflection.
"It would be a juberous thing to try again. But I'm goin' to see Pete Markham in the mornin'. He'll go apast h-yer to the camp-meetin', fer he's a Methodis' by marriage, – that is, his wife's a member, un that makes Pete feel 'z if he wuz a kind-uv a member-in-law. Un Pete knows mighty well 't when the time comes roun' fer him to run fer office, it'll be worth while to know pussidin' elders, un circus-riders, un locus' preachers, un exhausters, un all sorts uv camp-meetin' people. Pete's jes' as shore to go to camp-meetin' a Sunday mornin' 'z a bear is to eat honey when he comes acrost a tumble-down bee-tree."
The next morning Bob stood in his shirt-sleeves leaning over Mrs. Grayson's gate and watching the people that rode to the great Sunday assembly at the Union camp-ground. Many a staid plow-horse, with collar-marks on his shoulders, had been diligently curried and brushed to transform him into a stylish saddle-nag; and many a young man, with hands calloused by ax-helve and plow-handle, rode to-day in his Sunday best with a blooming girl by his side, or behind him, and with the gay heart of a troubadour in his breast. Fresh calico dresses, in which the dominant tint was either a bright pink or a positive blue, were flaunted with more pride than a princess feels in her lace and pearls. The woman who has worked and schemed and skimped to achieve her attire knows the real pleasure and victory of self-adornment.
The early comers of this Sunday-morning procession are, in the main, Methodists going to eat bread and water with the brethren in the 9 o'clock love-feast assembly, to sing together the touching songs of fellowship, and to tell, and to hear told, the stories of personal trials and sorrows, – to taste the pleasure of being one of a great company wrought to ecstasy by a common religious passion. But as the summer sun mounts higher, the road is more and more thronged with a miscellaneous company. For at 11 o'clock the presiding elder, a great man of all the country round, will preach one of his favorite sermons, and all the world – believers and scoffers, doctors and lawyers, and judges and politicians – will be there to hear him marshal in new forms the oft-repeated arguments in favor of the divine origin of Christianity, or the truth of the Arminian system of Wesley, and to admire the dramatic effect of his well-told anecdotes and the masterly pathos of his peroration. The people no longer go in couples; there are six and even ten in a group. And how well they sit their saddles! There is no "rising to the trot," in the ungraceful fashion of New York and Boston gentlemen and ladies who have put away the tradition of ancestors of unrivaled horsemanship, to adopt from England an ugly custom excusable only in a land of fox-hunting. You might find girls in their teens in this company who ride with grace and dash over difficult roads, and who could learn nothing worth their while from a riding-master, – for to ride perfectly consists chiefly in riding as naturally and unconsciously as one walks, and that is rarely given to any but those that are to the saddle born. But besides saddle-horses there are wagons, for wherever there is a prairie, wheels come early. One or two families not yet out of a pioneer state of existence go creaking painfully along in ox-carts; and there are barefoot boys skurrying afoot across fields to save distance. Everybody feels bound to go. The attraction of a crowd is proportioned to its greatness, like all other gravitation, and this one will drain the country dry of people. Scarcely any one stays at home, as you see. There are little children in the wagons and on the croups of the saddle-horses, while some supernumerary ones are held in place on the withers; it is in this way that the babies get their first lessons in horsemanship. At half-past 10 o'clock the roads are beclouded with dust that drifts to leeward, turning the green blades of the corn-field to gray and grizzling the foliage of the trees. All along the road there is the sound of voices in many keys – but all with a touch of holiday buoyancy in them. There is that universal interchange of good feeling which is only found in communities that have no lines of social cleavage. Everybody is talking to everybody, – about the weather, the crops, the latest weddings, the most recent deaths, and, above all, the murder at the camp-meeting. To this topic every party drifts when the Grayson farm-house comes in sight, if not before. Wild stories are repeated of Tom's profligacy, and of the causes that led to the feud between him and Lockwood. As the people come nearer to the house their voices fall into a lower tone, and they ride by the front gate in almost entire silence, scanning the house with eager curiosity, as though trying to penetrate the chagrin of those within. They all nod to Bob; it is the common and indispensable civility of the country. Bob nods to all in turn and grunts in a friendly way at those with whom he is acquainted; but to his best friends he gives a cheerful "Howdy!"
At length the deputy sheriff, Markham, appears, riding alongside of his wife. She is also escorted on the other side by Magill, the county clerk, who is saying the pleasantest things he can think of to her. When Markham arrives at a point nearly opposite the gate, Bob does not nod, but gives his head a significant jerk backward and to the left, – a laconic invitation to stop a moment, rendered the more explicit by the utterance in a low tone of a single word, "Pete!" Markham draws rein and stops to hear what Bob has to say; and Mason, who has come out on the porch at that moment, descends to the gate to talk with Magill and Mrs. Markham, who have also pulled up. The whole five are presently engaged in conversation in one group, while the horses amuse themselves by thrusting their dusty noses through the cracks of the fence to nibble at such blades of grass as are within their reach. The sight of the deputy sheriff and the county clerk in front of the Grayson house piques yet more the curiosity of the passers-by, who wonder what those privileged folks can be talking about.
"You cannot do that," Markham said presently, in reply to a suggestion that came from Mason. "It's no use talking to the sheriff about moving Tom to Perrysburg. He's made up his mind not to move him; and if he did move him, Perrysburg wouldn't be a safe place."
"The shairiff seems to have one eye on Broad Run, ainh Pate?" said Magill chaffingly.
But Pete Markham neither smiled nor said anything in reply.
"It's a shame something can't be done for Tom," said Mason. "He's got a right to a fair trial; and we think he's innocent."
"I'll do anything I can," said Markham, whose memory had been haunted by the appealing face of Mrs. Grayson ever since his domiciliary visit in search of Tom's pistol.
"I'm not caring much whether he's innocent or not, meself," said Magill. "May be Lockwood aggravated 'im an' naded puttin' out of the way. All I say is, Tom faced that crowd the other day like a man, an' he's a born gintleman in me own istimation; an' I'd niver let a gintleman be hung by a gang of blackguards, if I could help it."
"Broad Run don't vote for you, Magill," said Markham.
"You wouldn't ixpict it to vote for a man with a clane shirt on, now would ye?"
"Well," said Bob, "I've been a-thinkin' that ef Pete could make people b'lieve that they wuz another man wanted fer the shootin', it would sort uh muddle Jake's plans fer a while, un by that time liker'n not Abe Lincoln'll find out who the rale murderer is."
"Tell me what's the color of his hair, Pate?" said Magill. "Then I'll help you foind him."
"Well," drawled Markham, turning a little sidewise in the saddle to rest himself, and looking perfectly serious and secretive, "I haven't found out about his hair, – he wore a straw hat, you know. But he was a youngish fellow, with foxy whiskers under his chin."
"Middlin' small?" suggested Magill, with a faint pucker of drollery about the corner of his mouth.
"Yes," said Markham, biting the butt of his beech switch meditatively. "Ruther under the average, I should say, without being small."
"One eye a leetle crossed?" Bob McCord inquired, laughing.
"Right eye a little out," said Markham, waving his hand outwardly. "He had quarreled with Lockwood a good while ago and owed him a grudge. That's the man."
"Know his name?" put in Magill.
"N-o. That's one thing we're trying to find out. He come from off East where Lockwood used to live. We've got to try to find if anybody knows which way he went when he left the camp-meetin' that night, and if anybody can tell just where he come from."
"Oh! I understand now what you're after," said Magill. "There'll be a plinty will remimber the man when you come to spake about him. Don't you say what you want him fer. L'ave all explinations to me. I'm not responsible, an' I'll let out the saycrits of the shairiff's office."
The passers-by had grown visibly fewer in the last few minutes, and now the belated ones rode for the most part in a rapid trot or a gallop. Mrs. Markham began to warn her husband that there would not be a seat left; so the horses' heads were drawn up, and the trio set forward with a nod of good-bye to Bob and the schoolmaster.
Markham went to work in all seriousness to get information about the imaginary young man with red whiskers under his chin and an outward cast in one eye who had been seen on the ground the night of the murder. Magill took occasion to remark that if the praycher 'd only 'a' known what Markham was looking for, and all about the rale facts of the murder, he mightn't have held Tom up for an awful warnin' to the young that mornin'. But he supposed it did not matter whether you had the roight fellow or the wrong one, if you were only praychin'. Some of those who heard the clerk describe the smallish man with the red goatee and one eye out a little, thought they could remember having seen a man answering to this description; but as they could not give any information tending to secure his arrest, Magill did not think it worth while communicating their knowledge to Markham. But he quoted their sayings and surmises to the next persons he spoke to; so that, without ever straining his conscience to the point of positively asserting the substantive existence of such a red-whiskered young man with a squint, he had almost come to believe in him by the time the day was over.
The story reached Broad Run in two or three forms before night, and served to throw Jake's forlorn hope into confusion. But Magill did not think best to leave the Broad Run people to the mercy of rumor in so important a matter. He rode up to the grocery about half-past 5 in the afternoon, and having hitched his horse to a neighboring dogwood, he walked in with a good-evening to the group at the door. Going up to the counter he called up the whole party to drink with him, as became an Irish gentleman of generous spirit, who was, moreover, a prudent politician. But Broad Run had never taken a fancy to Magill; there was a ceremoniousness about his attempts to flatter them which did not harmonize with their rough-and-ready ways. If he had said, "Come, boys, liquor up!" they would have thought his manner perfect; but he bowed blandly to Jake Hogan, and said, "Have something to drink, won't you?" and so to the rest. They mentally condemned him as "too all-fired fine in his ways and too much dressed up for a free country." But they did not neglect the opportunity to drink at somebody else's expense. Jake Hogan was the more ready to accept such hospitality because he had been feeling a little depressed since his unlucky trip to Perrysburg. And now this story which he had heard of another man who might be the murderer had destroyed what chance he had of mustering a party for Moscow; for Jake's most devoted partisans did not like to run any risk of hanging the wrong man.
"Mr. Magill," said Jake, after he had turned his whisky-glass nearly to the perpendicular in the endeavor to extract the last drop, "what's this yer story about Tom's not being the ginooine murderer? I don't take no stock in the yarn, fer my part."
"Well, it ain't best to say anything about it till they get the other man," said Magill, assuming a close look. "I hear they're purty hot on his track."
"What kind of a lookin' creetur wuzzy?" asked Bijy Grimes, an oldish man with an effeminate chin and soft, fair cheeks which contrasted strangely with his slovenly and unkempt appearance. Bijy had drunk his liquor, and now sat resting on a keg with his mouth dropped wide open; it was a way he had of listening.
"Well, I don't know anything only what I hear," said Magill. "I'm not the shairiff, you know. The story goes that he was a man with a red goatee – "
"Un what fer sized man?" asked Bijy.
"Rather under-sized, and with one eye a little walled," said Magill.
"I'm darned ef 't ain't the wery man I seed," said Bijy, who never failed to know something about everything. "He wuz comin' towurds the camp-meetin' that wery arternoon. Dern!" and he shut his mouth, and got to his feet in excitement. "I kind-uh suspicioned 'im too," he added.
"Well, I don't know anything," said the clerk; "but if they catch that stranger and prove it on him, – mind, I say, if they prove it, – count me for one that will help get the world rid of him by Broad Run law, as they call it. But I've got to get on home, gintlemen. Good-bye, gintlemen, and good luck to you all!" So saying, Magill bowed respectfully.
The rest nodded their heads and said good-bye.
"He's too orful slick," said Jake, when Magill had gone. "Makes me kind uv sick. Now I like a man ut talks out like a man, you know; without so much dodrotted saf-sawder, un so on. He ain't none uh my kind, Magill hain't."
XX
LINCOLN AND BOB
Fast by the "City Hotel" in Moscow stood a beech-tree, as we have said, and under this tree were two or three benches. This umbrageous spot was the cool and favorite loafing-place of the villagers, the trysting-place for making bargains or meeting friends. The ground was beaten by many feet to the hardness of a floor, and the village boys delighted to play marbles in this convenient spot. Their cries of "rounses," "taw," "dubs," "back licks," and "vent" might often be heard there before and after school hours. On one of these benches under the beech-tree Bob McCord had an interview with Tom Grayson's lawyer, according to appointment, on the day of Lincoln's return from court at Perrysburg.
"What's this about lynching Tom?" Lincoln inquired. "A lot of fellows rode into Perrysburg looking for him last Thursday night."
"Yes," said Bob, with a hearty chuckle: "I put 'em onto that air track myself. They wuz comin' down h-yer, but I made 'em think 't Tom wuz moved to Perrysburg."
"Are they going to try it again?" asked Lincoln.
"Not right off; they're sort-uh discairaged like. A few uv 'em wuz cocked un primed to come a Sunday night, – sech uv 'em as hadn't gin it up arter ridin' over to Perrysburg, – but we fooled 'em ag'in. Pete Markham, the depitty sher'f, jes' sidled over to camp-meetin' un let on 't he wuz a-lookin' fer somebody what knowed sumpin' about a young feller weth red whiskers un one eye a leetle crossed, like. Magill, the clerk, went over to camp-meetin' un down onto the Run, un gin it out on the sly like zif he could n' keep in, that they'd diskivered the tracks uv a young feller from another k-younty weth red whiskers, un so on, that had done the shootin'. The story run like a perrary fire in a high wind un sort-uh mixed 'em up in the'r minds, like. I've got it fixed so as they can't come down unbeknownst to me; un ef wust comes to wust, w'y, I've got my eye sot onto a crowbar."
"A crowbar? What would you do with a crowbar, Bob?" asked Lincoln, with a puzzled contraction of the brows. "You wouldn't try to whale the whole crowd with it, would you?"
"W'y, Abe, I 'low ef a rale tight pinch comes, to try a tussle weth that air jail. I don't know's I could prize out one uv them air iron grates, but ef 't wuz to come to that, I'd try to git Tom out uv harm's way. You say the word un I'll find some way to let 'im out anyhow."
"No, no; don't do that. If he runs away he'll be caught, and then he'll be sure to be lynched, or hanged. Let me try the law first, and then it'll be time enough to use crow-bars afterward if I fail. Do you know Dave Sovine?"
"When I see 'im. He's an ornery kind uv a cuss. I don't know 's he rickollecks me."
"So much the better if he doesn't. You must get him to tell you all about the shooting – his story of it. Get him to tell more than was brought out at the inquest. Make him explain it, and find out if he's going to clear out before the trial."
"I heern tell 't he won't talk," said Bob. "The prosecutin' attorney's shut 'im up tight 'z bees-wax, they say."
Lincoln mused awhile. "If the prosecuting attorney has shut him up, you must open him. Contrive some way to get his story and find out what he means to do."
But it was not easy to encounter Dave in these days. Since he had acquired notoriety, as the only witness of the murder, he had been seized with an unprecedented diffidence, and kept himself out of public gaze. The boys about the village conjectured that he was "laying low for big game." Bob, however, had no objection to waiting for Sovine's coming. He liked this lurking for prey as a cat likes the watching at a mouse-hole. Besides, loafing of any sort suited Big Bob's genius. He could sit astride a barrel on the shady side of a grocery for hours with no sense of exhaustion. More than one day McCord had passed in this way, when at last Dave Sovine came in sight, walking rather hurriedly and circumspectly toward the center of the village. Bob was in the middle of a hunting yarn which he was lazily telling to another loafer on the next barrel as he whittled a bit of hickory stripped from one of the hoops in front of him. Without betraying any excitement, he astonished his companions by bringing the long-drawn story to an abrupt conclusion. Then dismounting from his barrel he sauntered across the street in such a way as to encounter Dave and to fall in with the direction in which the latter was going.
"Hot day!" Bob said, as he intersected Dave's course at an acute angle.
"Yes," answered the other.
"How's the corn crap out your way?"
"Dunno," said Dave.
"Goin' to be in town long?" Bob persisted.
To this Dave made no response. He only turned off abruptly at the street-corner and left Bob behind.
"A feller might as well try to git sugar-water by tappin' a dead sycamore as to git anything out uv him," Bob said to himself, as he turned and took the road toward Hubbard Township.
As he walks homeward over the level prairie, which west-wardly has no visible limit, Bob can only think of one way to persuade Sovine to talk, and that way is out of the reach of a man so impecunious as he. It is in vain that you thrust your great fists down into the pockets of your butternut trousers, Bob. You know before you grope in them that there is no money there. You have felt of them frequently to-day and found them empty; that is why you are going home thirsty. Money will not be persuaded to remain in those pockets. Nevertheless, all the way home Bob mechanically repeats the search and wonders how he will get money to carry out his plan. He might go to Lincoln, but he has an instinctive feeling that Lincoln is what he calls "high-toned," and that the lawyer might see an impropriety in his new plan. By the time he passes into his own cabin he knows that there is no other way but to get the money from Mrs. Grayson. No easy task, Bob reflects. Mrs. Grayson has never shown any readiness to trust Bob McCord's business skill.
But the next morning he takes the path to the Grayson house, walking more and more slowly as he approaches it, with head dropped forward and fists rammed hard into his pockets, while he whistles doubtfully and intermittently. Now and then he pauses and looks off scrutinizingly. These are the ordinary physical signs of mental effort in this man. In seeking a solution of any difficulty he follows his habits. He searches his pockets, he looks for tracks on the ground, he scans the woods.
He approaches the back of the Grayson house and is relieved to see Barbara alone in the kitchen, spinning.
"You see, Barb'ry," he said, as he half ducked his head in entering the door, – "you see, I'm in a fix."
"Won't you take a chair, Mr. McCord?" said Barbara, as she wound the yarn she had been spinning on the spindle and then stopped the wheel.
"No, I'm 'bleeged to yeh, I won't sed down," he replied, holding himself awkwardly as with a sense that indoors was not a proper or congenial place for him.
"Abe Lincoln sot me a sum un I can't noways git the answer. He wanted me to git out uh that air Dave Sovine a full account uh the lie he's a-goin' to tell agin Tommy. But I can't git at it noways. The feller won't talk to me. I've thought uv ketchin' 'im by himself un lickin' 'im till 'e'd let it out, but I'm afeerd Abe 'u'd think ut that 'u'd flush his game afore he wuz ready to shoot. They ain't on'y jest one other way, un that's to gamble weth Dave un coax his secret that away. But you see I'm so oncommonly pore this year 't I couldn't gamble at a cent a game 'thout he'd trust me, un he wouldn't do that, I 'low."
After cross-questioning Bob a little, Barbara went into the sitting-room to her mother and Bob went to the outer door to breathe the open air while he waited. Barbara's mother positively refused to let go of a dollar of her precious little hoard of silver.
"D' you think, Barb'ry, 't I'd let a shif'less kind uv a man like Big Bob have my money to gamble it away to that Sovine? No, I won't, and that's all there is about it. Dave got a lot uv my money a-gamblin' with Tommy, an' he don't git no more uv it, that's as shore as my name's Marthy Grayson. They don't no good come uv gamblin' noways, an' I can't bear that Dave Sovine should git some more uv our money, an' him a-tryin' to swear away Tommy's life."
Barbara stood still a minute to give her mother's indignation time to spend itself. Then she said:
"Well, poor Tom'll have to die, I suppose, if you can't bring yourself to give Bob something to help Abraham save him."
Mrs. Grayson stood for several seconds in self-conflict. Then she replied, "Well, Barb'ry, you always will have your way." Saying this she turned irresolutely toward her money-drawer. "I s'pose I'd jest as well give up first as last. How much does Bob want?"
"Ten dollars 'll be enough, he thinks."
"Ten dollars! Does he think I'm made out of money? Now, looky here, Barb'ry; I'm not a-goin' to give him no sech amount. Here's five, an' you tell him I won't spare another red cent."
Barbara took the silver pieces and went out to Bob.
Possessed of funds, Bob again set out to meet Dave. This time he could not wait for Dave to come to town, but boldly sallied out along the road past the house of Sovine's father. How could he wait? His pockets and his fingers were burned by the possession of so much hard cash. He felt obliged to take it out and count it once or twice, and to make an inspection of his pockets, which had a treacherous way of coming into holes under the strain of the big, muscular hands, so often rammed into their depths for purposes of meditation.
After walking past the Sovine house once or twice without encountering Dave, he sat down by a prairie brook, the gentle current of which slipped noiselessly along, dragging its margins softly against the grass, whose seed-laden heads at this season of the year hung over into the water, the matted blades lying prone upon the unbroken surface: – their tips all curved in one way mark the direction of the gentle stream. Bob reclined on the low bank, where he was concealed from the road by a little yellow-twigged water-willow, the only thing within a mile or two that could be called a tree.
After awhile Dave Sovine, sauntering, ruminating tobacco, and looking warily about, as was his way, came slowly along the road. When he caught sight of Bob he started, and paused irresolutely as though about to retreat. But seeing that Bob was looking at him, he recovered himself and came toward the reclining figure. Truth to tell, Dave was lonesome in retirement, and the sight of Bob had awakened a desire to talk.
"Have you seed a man go a-past h-yer weth a bag of wheat on his hoss?" queried Bob. "I'm a-waitin' h-yer to buy a half-bushel uv seed wheat fer fall sowin' f'om a feller what's a-comin' in f'om t' other eend uv the k-younty."
The story was impromptu, and Bob had no time to fill in details. Dave looked at him suspiciously, and only replied by shaking his head. By way of confirming his theory of the reason for his waiting, Bob idly jingled the silver coins in his pocket as he talked about the crops and the relative advantage of living in the timber, where you can raise winter wheat, or out on the perrary. The sound of tinkling silver caught Dave's ear, as it was meant to.
"Play a game of seven-up?" said Dave languidly.
"You're too good a hand fer me," answered Bob with affected wariness.
"Oh! we'll only try small stakes. Luck's ag'inst me here lately"; and he pulled out a well-worn pack of cards without waiting for Bob to reply.
"No; ef I play, I want to play weth my k-yards," said Bob, who had a lurking hope of winning, notwithstanding Dave's reputation.
"I don't mind where the cards come from," said Dave, as he took Bob's pack, which was in a worse state than his own. Then, with habitual secretiveness, he said, "Let's go into the corn-field."
They crossed the road and climbed into the corn-field, seating themselves on the edge of the unplowed grassy balk between the corn and the fence. Here they were hidden and shaded by the broad-leaved horse and trumpet weeds in the fence-row. As was to be expected, Bob won rather oftener than he lost at first. After a while the luck turned, and Bob stopped playing.
"You'd better go on," said Dave.
"I d' know," answered Bob; "I'm about as well off now as I wuz in the beginnin'. I 'low I'd better hold up."
"Aw, no; let's go on. You might make sumpin."
"Well," said Bob, running the ends of the cards through his fingers, "ef you'll tell me jest how that air shootin' tuck place, I will."
"I don't keer to talk about that," said Dave, with a nonchalant air, that hardly concealed his annoyance. "The prosecuting attorney thought I'd better not."
"I wuzn't at the eenques'," Bob pleaded, "un they's so many stories a-goin' that I want to h-yer it f'om you."
"Oh, I know you," said Dave. "You think I haven't got my eye-teeth cut yet. You have been a-layin' for me and I know what you are here fer. Do you think I don't see through your winter wheat? I know you're on Tom's side."
"Well, in course I am," said Bob, roused to audacity by his failure to deceive. "But it mout be jest as well fer you to tell me. Un maybe a leetle better. It mout be the very k-yard fer you to throw at this p'int in the game." And Bob's face assumed a mysterious and suggestive look as he laid his cards on the grass and leaned forward regarding Dave.
"Well," said Dave, in a husky half-whisper, letting his eyes fall from Bob's, "I'll tell you what: I don't really keer to have Tom hung, un I've been feelin' bad un wishin' I could git out ov it. Ef I had anuff money to go to New Orleans like a gentleman, I'd just light out some night, and give Tom a chance for his life."
"Maybe you mout git the money," said McCord, picking up his cards. "But your story wouldn' hang him nohow, I 'low." Here Bob laid down a half-dollar for a new game, and Dave covered it.
"Of course, if I stay he's got to swing," said Dave; and by way of proving this to Bob, he told his story of the shooting with some particularity, while he proceeded to win one half-dollar after another almost without interruption. "Now," he said, when he had told the story and answered Bob's questions, "you can see that's purty tolerable bad. I sh'd think they'd ruther I'd clear out. An' if somebody'd give you a hundred dollars an' you'd let me play three or four games of poker with you some fine day I'd make tracks, an' the prosecuting attorney'd have to get along without me."
By this time all of the five dollars that Barbara had furnished, except the last twenty-five-cent piece, had passed from Bob's reluctant hands to Dave Sovine's greedy pockets. This one quarter of a dollar Bob had prudently placed in the great pocket of his hunting-shirt, that he might have something to fill his stone jug with. For though he was devoted to the Graysons' side of the controversy, Bob McCord could hardly be called a disinterested philanthropist; and he held that even in serving one's friends one must not forget to provide the necessaries of life.
"You're awful good on a game," said Bob, with a rueful face. "You've cleaned me out, by hokey; I'll see ef I can't git you that hundred dollars, so's you kin win it. But it'll take time fer the Widder Grayson to raise it, I 'low."
"Oh! they ain't no partik'lar hurry," said Dave, cheerfully counting over his winnings and stowing the silver about in his pockets as a ship-master might distribute his ballast. "Only if I don't get the money I'll have to stay h-yer an' go to court, I guess." And Dave hitched up his trousers and walked off with the air of a man who has a master-stroke of business in view.