To this Luke Tweezy made no comment.  But he resumed his squattering about the floor and his poking and delving in the piles of hay.  He raised a dust that flew up in clouds.  He coughed and snorted and snuffed.  Racey and Swing Tunstall laughed.

“Makes you think of a hay-tedder, don’t he?” grinned Racey.  “How much did you lose, Luke—­two bits?”

At this Luke looked up sharply.  “Seems to me you got over yore drunk pretty quick,” said he.

“Oh, my liquor never stays by me a great while,” Racey told him easily.  “That’s the beauty of being young.  When you get old and toothless an’ deecrepit like some people, not to mention no names of course, why then she’s a cat with another tail entirely.”

“What’ell’s goin’ on in here?” It was Red Kane speaking.  Red was Tom Kane’s brother.

Racey and Swing moved apart to let him through.  Red Kane entered, stared at the spectacle of Luke Tweezy and his bobbing lantern, stared and stared again.

“What you doing, Luke?” he demanded.

“Luke’s lost a nickel, Red.”  Racey answered for the lawyer.  “And a nickel, you know yoreself, is worth all of five cents.”

“I lost some money,” grumbled Luke.

“But you said you lost it when you tripped and fell,” said Racey.  “And you fell outside.”

“I lost it here,” Luke said, shortly.

“I don’t giveadamn where you lost it or what you lost,” declared Red Kane.  “You can’t go flirtin’ round with any lantern in Tom’s barn.  First thing you know you’ll set it afire.  C’mon, Luke, pull yore freight.”

“But lookit here,” protested Luke, “I lost something valuable, Red.  I gotta find it.”

“It wasn’t money then?” put in Racey.

“Of course it was money,” averred Luke.

“You said ‘it’ this time, Luke.”

“It don’t matter what I said.  I lost some money, and I want to find it.”

“You can want all you like,” said Red Kane, “but not in this barn.  C’mon back to-morrow morning, and you can hunt the barn to pieces, but you can’t do any more skirmishing round in here to-night.  I’ll lock the barn door so’s nobody else will go fussbudgettin’ round in here.  C’mon, Luke, get a move on you.”

So Luke was driven out much against his will, and Racey and Swing roamed around to the dance hall.  Here at a table in the ell where the bar stretched its length they could sit and talk—­unheard under cover of the music.

“But how come you had yore boots off?” Swing desired to know when a table, a bottle and two glasses were between them.  “Don’t try to tell me you stuck ’em behind that wagon-seat on purpose to trip him.  You never knowed he was comin’.”

“Well, no, I didn’t exactly,” admitted Racey, with a sly smile.  “Those boots were laid out all special for you.”

“For me?”

“For you.”

“But why for me?” Perplexedly.