“No,” said Zaanan, gruffly, “but if I was drivin’ that way and come to Bullet’s Corners and there wa’n’t nobody there, I calc’late I’d slack down and wait till somebody come. G’-by, Jim.”
After dinner Jim drove out toward Le Bar’s. At Bullet’s Corners, waiting in the shade of a big hickory, were Zaanan Frame and his horse Tiffany.
“Howdy,” said Zaanan. “Goin’ somewheres?”
“Thought I’d call on old man Le Bar,” said Jim, playing the game according to Zaanan’s rules.
“Goin’ that way myself,” said Zaanan, with surprise that seemed real. “Calc’late I’ll git there ’bout a quarter of an hour first, seem’s I’ve got the best horse.”
“You have a fine animal,” said Jim, without a quiver.
Zaanan looked over at him suspiciously; gazed at Tiffany’s ancient and knobby frame; opened his mouth as though to make an observation, but decided on silence.
“G’-by, Jim,” he said, in a moment.
“G’-by, Judge,” said Jim.
In an honest fifteen minutes Jim drove on until he saw two old men sitting on the door-step of a house at the roadside. It was a little, weather-beaten house, not such as one would expect to find the owner of a fortune in timber housed in. But one of the men was Zaanan Frame, so Jim stopped and alighted.