“Who lives in there?” demanded the stranger. “Who are those folks?”
“Ceph Baker's tribe,” was the sullen answer.
“Baker, hey? Humph! new folks, I presume likely. Used to be Seth Snow's house, that did. Where'd Seth go to?”
Gabe grunted that he did not know. He believed Mr. Snow was dead, had died years before.
“Humph! dead, hey? Then I know where he went. Do you ever smoke—or does drivin' this horse make you too nervous?”
Mr. Lumley thawed a bit at the sight of the proffered cigar. He admitted that he smoked occasionally and that he guessed “'twouldn't interfere with the drivin' none.”
“Good enough! then we'll light up. I can talk better if I'm under a head of steam. There's a new house; who built that?”
The “new” house was fifteen years old, but Gabe gave the name of its builder. Then, thinking that the catechising had been altogether too one-sided, he ventured an observation of his own.
“This is a pretty good cigar, Mister,” he said. “Smokes like a Snowflake.”
“Like a what?”