“What’s become of the girl they fought about?”
“Kate Johnson? She married Amos Dangler eighteen years ago an’ is still alive an’ hearty up Goose Crick, far’s I know.”
“Pete thinks she is going to marry him in the spring. It seems that he has not kept a very close watch on the flight of time.”
“He’s crazy. Sometimes he talks as if his shack on Squaw Brook was burned down only a week ago. An’ he’s everlasting’ly beggin’ matches. Keeps every pocket of every coat he owns full of matches. But he’s still got streaks of sanity. He has brains enough, but some of them’s got twisted, that’s all. Nobody can best him at a game of checkers nor at raisin’ chickens an’ gettin’ aigs. It’s a queer case. Now what do you reckon would happen if the truth that he didn’t ever kill Amos Dangler was to pop into his head some day?”
“I was wondering the same thing. What do you think?”
“I guess he’d rectify his mistake without loss of time—an’ that he’d do it with an axe. Maybe he’d even chase Amos up a tree first an’ then chop him down, jist so’s to have everything right. Folks who’ve been demented, crazy, lunatic as long as Pete has ain’t always practical. They like to do things their own way, but they sure like to do ’em. How do you cal’late to set about gettin’ a horse out of old Luke?”
“Speaking of lunatics, what?”
“Well, sir, you got to use the best part of valor, that’s a sure thing.”
“I agree with you. One or the other of us should think of a way in a few days. There’s no particular hurry.”
The hotel had only two guests at this time, Vane and the person whom he had heard snoring on the night of his spectacular arrival. The snorer was the manager of the “Grange” store, an elderly, anxious looking man who always returned to the store immediately after dinner and retired to his room immediately after supper.