Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, Mr. Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”
Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen. The money was clutched in his moist hand. Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light.
“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and to’ . . . ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’” said Goree with a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.”
The mountaineer received the amazing screed that the lawyer handed him, folded it with immense labour, and laced it carefully in his pocket.
Goree was standing near the window. “Step here,” he said, raising his finger, “and I’ll show you your recently purchased enemy. There he goes, down the other side of the street.”
The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in the direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high silk hat, was passing on the opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked, Goree glanced at his face. If there be such a thing as a yellow wolf, here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his unhuman eyes followed the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs.
“Is that him? Why, that’s the man who sent me to the pen’tentiary once!”
“He used to be district attorney,” said Goree carelessly. “And, by the way, he’s a first-class shot.”
“I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. “So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, Mr. Goree, better’n you ever did!”
He moved toward the door, but lingered there, betraying a slight perplexity.