“In an hour or so,” answered the merchant, as he spat down into a cuspadore. “I'm waiting now for a turnout, and I've got some business to attend to.”
“Collections to make, I'll bet my hat,” Pole laughed. “I thought mighty few folks was out on Main Street jest now; they know you are abroad in the land, an' want to save the'r socks.”
“Do you reckon that's it, Baker?” said Mayhew, as he spat again. “I thought maybe it was because they was afraid you'd git on the war-path, and wanted to keep their skins whole.”
The clerk and the planter laughed. “He got you that time, Pole,” the latter said, with a smile.
“I'll acknowledge the corn,” and the mountaineer joined in the laugh good-naturedly. “To look at the old skinflint, settin' half asleep all the time, a body wouldn't think his tongue had any life to it. But I've seen the dem thing wiggle before. It was when thar was a trade up, though.”
II
AS they were driving into the country road, just beyond the straggling houses in the outskirts of the town, going towards the mountains, which lay along the western horizon like blue clouds settling to earth, the planter said:
“I've seen you fishing and hunting with Mayhew's young partner, Nelson Floyd. You and he are rather intimate, are you not?”