The squirrel hunter straightened a leg half across the room, drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and threw them on the table.

“Thar’s two hundred dollars, Mr. Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like yourn hev.  Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’.  I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality.  Thar’s the money.”

The little roll of currency on the table slowly untwisted itself, writhing and jumping as its folds relaxed.  In the silence that followed Garvey’s last speech the rattling of the poker chips in the court-house could be plainly heard.  Goree knew that the sheriff had just won a pot, for the subdued whoop with which he always greeted a victory floated across the square upon the crinkly heat waves.  Beads of moisture stood on Goree’s brow.  Stooping, he drew the wicker-covered demijohn from under the table, and filled a tumbler from it.

“A little corn liquor, Mr. Garvey?  Of course you are joking about—­ what you spoke of?  Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it?  Feuds.  Prime, two-fifty to three.  Feuds, slightly damaged—­two hundred, I believe you said, Mr. Garvey?”

Goree laughed self-consciously.

The mountaineer took the glass Goree handed him, and drank the whisky without a tremor of the lids of his staring eyes.  The lawyer applauded the feat by a look of envious admiration.  He poured his own drink, and took it like a drunkard, by gulps, and with shudders at the smell and taste.

“Two hundred,” repeated Garvey.  “Thar’s the money.”

A sudden passion flared up in Goree’s brain.  He struck the table with his fist.  One of the bills flipped over and touched his hand.  He flinched as if something had stung him.

“Do you come to me,” he shouted, “seriously with such a ridiculous, insulting, darned-fool proposition?”

“It’s fa’r and squar’,” said the squirrel hunter, but he reached out his hand as if to take back the money; and then Goree knew that his own flurry of rage had not been from pride or resentment, but from anger at himself, knowing that he would set foot in the deeper depths that were being opened to him.  He turned in an instant from an outraged gentleman to an anxious chafferer recommending his goods.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick.  “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred.  A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied.  Shall I w-wrap it up for you, Mr. Garvey?”

Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth.  “Missis Garvey will be pleased.  You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey.  Just a scrap ov writin’, Mr. Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”

Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen.  The money was clutched in his moist hand.  Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light.