pocket clear five hundred dols, and d.a.m.n me if I intend to pay another cent, come what will or may."

"Ditto with you, Bill Buck," endorsed Slaughter.

Grubbs, Randall, and Spence were silent, though evidently inclined to the same way of thinking.

"I've sworn every year I'd stop it," continued Buck, "an' I'd have done so but for Alf there. It's all very well for him. He's rich, and can stand it. With some of the rest of us it's dog-gone different."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Brandon. "My being rich had nothing to do with it. I was as anxious as any of you to get the load off my shoulders, only I could never see how it was to be done."

"Do you see now?" asked Spence.

"Not very clearly, I confess."

"It's clear as mud to me--one way is--" said Slaughter.

"And to me," chimed in Buck. "What way? Tell us?" demanded the store-keeper. "I'm ready for most anything that'll clear us of that tax."

"You can get clear, then, by making a _clear_ of the collector."

The suggestion was Slaughter's, the last part of it made in a significant whisper.

"Them's just my sentiments," said Buck, speaking louder and with more determination. "I'd have put 'em in practice before this, if Alf Brandon had showed the pluck to agree to it. Durned if I wouldn't!"

"What!" said the young planter, affecting ignorance of the suggested scheme, "carry the collector off? Is that what you mean?"

"Oh! you're very innocent, Alf Brandon, you are, my sucking dove!"

It was Slaughter who spoke.

"Yes," said Buck, who answered to the interrogatory, "carry him off, and so far that there'll be no danger o' his coming back again. That's what we mean. Have you got anything better to propose? If you have, let's hear it. If not, what's the use of all this palaverin'?"

"Well," said Brandon, "I've been thinking we might carry something else off that might answer our purpose as well, and without getting us into any _sc.r.a.pe_ worth talking about."

"Carry what off? The girl--Rook's daughter?"

"No, no; Brandon don't mean that, and don't need it. He is going to take her to church, and there's no danger about his getting consent."

It was Buck who made the remark, and with some bitterness, being himself one of Lena Rook's unsuccessful admirers.

Brandon felt the sting all the more keenly from what had that day occurred. Moreover, he knew that Buck was upon the list of his rivals, and saw that the speech was meant for a slur.

The lurid light in his eye, and the pallor suddenly overspreading his lips, showed the depth of his chagrin. But he said nothing, fearful of defeating the scheme he had traced out for himself in relation to Lena Rook.

"Come, gentlemen," said Randall, for the first time entering into the conversation, "this talk only wastes time, and the subject is too serious for that. Let us hear Brandon out. I'm as anxious as any of you to settle this unpleasant matter, and if there be any safe plan we can all agree about, the sooner it's carried out the better. I needn't remind you the time's close at hand when the old Shylock will call for another pound of flesh. If any one can suggest a way to escape paying it, I think the most of us would be but too willing to stand the best champagne supper Jim Slaughter can get up for us, and a 'jury' into the bargain."

"Certain we'll all go snacks for that."

"Speak out, Brandon!"

"The fact is," said Brandon, thus appealed to, "we've been all a lot of fools to stand this thing so long. Supposing we have the old scoundrel, and dare him to do his worst, what evidence has he got against us only his own oath?"

"An' the girl's."

"No; the girl saw nothing, at least, only what was circ.u.mstantial. She couldn't swear to the deed; nor he neither, as far as that goes, though he makes pretence that he can. Suppose he does swear, what then? There are six of us--six oaths to one. I needn't ask whether you are all willing?"

"No, you needn't," was the unanimous rejoinder.

"Good, so far. I think you all know that Jerry Rook's oath wouldn't go far about these parts, and if we stick together and deny the thing _in toto_, I'd like to know how a jury could give against us. We've been fools not to try it. I'd have proposed it long ago, only that, like some of the rest, I've been thin-skinned about it, and didn't like to stir up stinking waters."

"Yes," cried Buck; "you've been thin-skinned 'bout it--no mistake o'

that. Your d.a.m.ned thin-skinnedness, as you call it, has cost me five hundred silver dollars."

"Me the same," said Slaughter.

"Well, for that matter, we all had to pay alike; and now let us all agree to share alike in any law expenses, in case it should come to that; for my part, I don't think it will."

"And why won't it?" asked Randall, whose law experience, himself being a pract.i.tioner, guided him to a different conclusion. "You don't suppose that the old Shylock will yield without a trial? Trust me, fellows, he'll fight hard to stick to that six hundred dollars _per annum_ he's been so long pulling out of us."

"d.a.m.n him! let him fight! What can he do? Let him tell his story, and what evidence can he bring to support it? As I've said, his oath won't count for anything against all six of ours."

"But, Alf; you forget the _body_?"

This reminiscence called up by Randall, caused all the others to start; for all had forgotten it--Brandon alone excepted.

"No, I don't," replied the latter, with an air of triumph at his own astuteness.

"Well, he'd bring that up, wouldn't he?"

"No doubt he would, if we're fools enough to let him."

"Ah! I see what you're driving at."

"So do we all."

"We know where _it_ lies; we've had good reason to. We've been soft to let it lie there so long, and we'd be softer still to let it lie there any longer."

"Darn it, there's something in what he says."

"What do you propose, Alf?"

"That we go in for a good bit of quiet exhumation, and transfer that body, or bones, or whatever relics be left of it, to a safer place.

After that's done let Jerry Rook do his worst."

"A good idea!"

"Jest the thing, by G.o.d!"

"Let's carry it out, then!"