“And I’d mention I seen you to-day.”
“Uh-huh. S’pose it would occur to you to say somethin’ to the effect that it looked like business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was comin’? Eh? And that fellers with an ax to grind had better git out the grindstone? Eh?”
“Come to think of it, I guess I’d make some sich observation.”
“And would you kind of speak about the new clothespin-mill? And allude to how the whistle’s always tootin’ for it to shut down on account of somethin’ bustin’?”
“It ’u’d be int’restin’ news to Gilders.”
“’Twouldn’t be any more ’n nat’ral for you to wonder what was the cause of it? Eh? Might suggest that somebody up his way could explain it. ’Twouldn’t be s’rprisin’, would it?”
“Likely to be so,” said Dolf.
“G’-by, Dolf,” said Zaanan.
“G’-by, Judge,” said Dolf.
In ten minutes Dolf was driving a livery rig out the River Road. A twelve-mile ride lay before him, and he did not lag. Some hours later he stopped, tied his horse to a tree by the roadside and plunged into the woods—jack-pine, scrub-oak, underbrush. Fifteen minutes’ scrambling brought him to an insignificant clearing with a log shanty in the middle of it. He stopped cautiously and looked about. Then he called: “Steve! Hey, Steve Gilders!”