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THE impending Northcutt-Jones suit in chancery became, during the next few weeks, the chief topic of gossip and speculation in Lane County. It was a dramatic situation with two of the cleverest and shrewdest tricksters the county had ever produced embattled against each other.

To Abner Teeftallow the coming legal action held no especial interest except that he perscnally liked Railroad Jones and particularly hated Perry Nerthcutt. The railroad, no matter into whose hands it fell, promised eventually to enrich Abner by enhancing the value of his indeterminate holdings in the county. The details of that enrichment, Abner left, through inclination and necessity, in the hands of Buckingham Sharp. In fact, Abner did nothing at all in Lanesburg except sign an occasional legal decument for Mr. Sharp. He had fallen, by great good luck, into that goal of the hill people, a state of complete idleness. Indolence was not only the hill idea of earthly bliss; it was their notion of Heaven. Heaven was a place where nobody worked or created anything. Up there everything was furnished free from a celestial ready-to-wear department: robes, crowns, jewels, etc.

By way of amusement, Abner spent some time with Beatrice Belle learning to dance to jazz records on a phonograph. His progress was not rapid, as Beatrice entirely failed to inspire him with a gusto for dancing. As she whirled him around she was tantalized by the absence of any spiritual response in his mechanical efforts.

"Why don't you sway with me?" she would cry out wasp-