“It ain’t that I care so much about the critter himself,” he confided, “but Bat Reeves has got his oar in the case, and by to-morrow the whole town will be watchin’ to see which gets the upper hands.”

“I’ll camp there,” promised Hiram, “and I don’t reckon they can do old dead-and-alive to any great extent whilst I’ve got my eye on ’em.”

Cap’n Sproul barricaded his door again the next day and disregarded ordinary summons at the portal.  But along in the afternoon came one who, after knocking vainly, began to batter with fists and feet, and when the first selectman finally tore open the door with full determination to kick this persistent disturber off the steps, he found Hiram Look there.  And Hiram Look came in and thumped himself into a chair with no very clearly defined look of triumph on his face.

“He ain’t dead again, is he?” demanded Cap’n Sproul, apprehensively.

“No, he ain’t, and that’s where he loses,” replied the old showman.  He chafed his blue nose and thumped his feet on the floor to warm them.  It was plain that he had been long exposed to the December wind.

“Law,” announced Hiram, “has got more wrinkles in it than there are in a fake mermaid’s tail.  Do you know what kind of a game they’ve gone to work and rigged up on your friend, the human curling-tongs?  The widder has got him to doin’ chores again.  It seems that she was always strong on keepin’ him doin’ chores.  He’s peckin’ away at that pile of wood that’s fitted and lays at the corner of the barn.  He’s luggin’ it into the woodshed, and three sticks at a time make his legs bend like corset whalebones.  Looks like he’s got a good stiddy job for all winter—­and every once in a while she comes out and yaps at him to prod him up.”

“Well, that gets him taken care of, all right,” said the Cap’n, with a sigh of relief.

“Yes, he’s taken care of,” remarked Hiram, dryly.  “But you don’t understand the thing yet, Cap’n.  On top of that woodpile sets Bat Reeves, lappin’ the end of a lead-pencil and markin’ down every time old water-skipper there makes a trip.”

“Well, if it amuses him, it takes care of him, too,” said the Cap’n.

“Looks innercent, childlike, and sociable, hey?” inquired the showman, sarcastically.  “Well, you just listen to what I’ve dug up about that.  Bat Reeves has bought the strip of ground between the woodpile and the shed door by some kind of a deal he’s rigged up with the widder, and with Alcander Reeves advisin’ as counsel.  And he’s got a stake set in the middle of that piece of ground and on that stake is a board and on that board is painted:  ’Trespassing Forbidden on Penalty of the Law.’  And him and that woman, by Alcander Reeves’s advice, are teaming that old cuss of a husband back and forth acrost that strip and markin’ down a trespass offence every time he lugs an armful of wood.”

The Cap’n blinked his growing amazement.

“And the scheme is,” continued Hiram, “to have old law shark of an Alcander, as trial justice, sentence the livin’ skeleton on each separate trespass offence, fine and imprisonment in default of payment.  Why, they’ve got enough chalked down against him now to make up a hundred years’ sentence, and he’s travellin’ back and forth there as innercent of what they’re tryin’ to do as is the babe unborn.”