“Eight hundred dollars,” said the first speaker, and his voice startled us as if a dead man we knew had spoken. “Eight hundred,—that’s the top of my pile fur that boy. Ef he warn’t so old and hadn’t one eye poked out, I agree he’d be wuth a heap more.”
“Waal, a trade’s a trade. I’ll take yer stump. Count out yer dimes, and I’ll fill out a blank bill of sale. Murker, the boy’s yourn.”
“Murker!”—we both started at the name. This was the satyr we had observed in the bar-room. Had Fulano’s victim crept from under his cairn in Luggernel Alley, and chased us to take flesh here and harm us again. Such a superstitious thought crossed my mind.
The likeness—look, voice, and name—was presently accounted for.
“You’re lookin’ fur yer brother out from Sacramenter, ’bout now, I reckon,” said the trader.
“He wuz comin’ cross lots with a man named Larrap, a pardener of his’n. Like enough they’ve stayed over winter in Salt Lake. They oughter rake down a most a mountainious pile thar.”
“Mormons is flush and sarcy with their dimes sence the emigration. Now thar’s yer bill of sale, all right.”
“And thar’s yer money, all right.”
“That are’s wut I call a screechin’ good price fur an old one-eyed nigger. Fourteen hundred dollars,—an all-fired price.”
“Eight hundred, you mean.”