“Yes, I remember,” Asher replied.
“Well, I just come by there and there ain’t a drop of water in that deep bend, no more’n in my hat.” Champers plumped his hat down on the floor with the words. “And the creek, on Stewart’s testimony, is a blasted fissure in the earth.”
“I always said when that bend went dry, I’d leave the country, but I can’t,” Jim Shirley said doggedly.
“Why not?” Champers inquired.
“Because I can’t throw away the only property I have in 90 the world, and I haven’t the means to get away, let alone start up anywhere else.”
“We’re all in the same boat,” Bennington declared.
“Same boat, every fellow rocking it, too, and no water to drown in if we fall out. We’re in the queerest streak of luck yet developed,” Todd Stewart observed.
“Let’s take a vote, then, and see how many of us really have no visible means of support and couldn’t walk out of here at all. Let’s have a show of hands,” Jim Shirley proposed.
“How did you decide?” Champers asked, as the hands dropped.
His eyes were on Asher Aydelot, who had not voted.