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"Thought he was buyin' the whole yeth!"

"Yeh, an' the nicest lot o' hollers to snake logs out of he ever did see."

All other explanations were lost in the yawping and whooping of the hillmen.

"What did it set him back?"

"Seventeen thousand dollars!"

This was the barb, the tang of the jest. The men stumbled over each other pounding backs, dashing away their own tears of merriment.

"God'lmighty! That Railroad Jones! He won't do! Oh, Lord!" the gasper went into convulsions again.

"We ort to send that man to Congress!" panted another, his face set in the mould of laughter, "brainy, wide-awake man, stid o' these little two-by-four lawyers."

"By heck, inside of a month he'd come back with the capitol buildin' under one arm and the guv'ment mint under t'other."

Abner was haw-hawing with his companions from the time he gathered the simple efficiency of Railroad Jones's ruse. There was something grotesquely humorous about it—the fat man leading Ditmas up and down one valley of trees, time and time again, making him think he was convering a wide territory of timbered hills and hollows. It was an exquisite game, this slipping up on the blind side of a purchaser and picking him off as the first pioneers had crept up on the Indians and picked them off! No wonder with such a father Adelaide was the smartest girl he had ever seen. The youth's heart warmed to Railroad's stratagem because he was Adelaide's father. There was something personal, intimate in this victory. Why he, Abner, could have done it himself if he had only thought of it in time!

He turned away from Railroad's admirers with an elated feeling and continued moving about the square with the restlessness of a man too excited with pleasure to remain still.