If he had changed his steady gaze from the knothole two hours later, it was not apparent to Simon Peak when he returned.
“I wrassled with her, Hime, just as tough and tight as though it was my own money that I was handlin’. If I done it right or not I donno. I ain’t ever been used to talkin’ about so much money before. But I’ve got her beat down to,” he drew a long breath, “sixty-six hundred, and she swears she won’t take a cent less. You know how set she gits on a thing!”
Hiram bored him suspiciously with his eye for a moment and snarled:
“It sounds to me as though she was goin’ to get five thousand and you was pers’nally lookin’ after your little old sixteen hundred.”
A couple of tears squeezed out and down over the giant’s flabby cheeks.
“There ain’t a day passed since you got back from up country, Hime, but what you’ve misjudged me some way, somehow. You misjudged me years ago. You’re doin’ it this minit. And it’s all on account of some missabul woman that I’m misjudged. I wish they was all in——”
His voice broke here and he turned away.
Sudden contrition, and as sudden fear that Peak, offended, might desert him in his need, assailed Hiram.
“I ain’t responsible for what I’m sayin’ to-day, Sime,” he pleaded. “You know what has happened to stir me up. I’ve been stirred up all my life, somehow. You’ll have to overlook it in me. There ain’t nobody I ever got along with better’n I have with you—when all is said. I’ll show you later that I appreciate it, too. We’ll get along together all right after this. All is, you must see me through and keep her mouth plugged.”
Then the two tall hats bent together in earnest conference.