“I can’t offer you more ’n a half-interest in the ‘lay.’  That’s all I own.”

“Is dis claim so reech lak people say?” ’Poleon inquired.  “Dey’re tellin’ me you goin’ mak’ hondred t’ousan’ dollar.”

“We’re just breastin’ out—­cross-cuttin’ the streak, but—­looky.”  Jerry removed a baking-powder can from the window-shelf and out of it he poured a considerable amount of coarse gold which the visitors examined with intense interest.  “Them’s our pannin’s.”

“How splendid!” Rouletta cried.

“I been clamorin’ to hire some men and take life easy.  I say put on a gang and h’ist it out, but”—­Jerry shot a glance at his partner—­“people tell me I’m vi’lent an’ headstrong.  They say, ‘Prove it up.’”

Linton interrupted by loudly exclaiming, “Come and get it, strangers, or I’ll throw it out and wash the skillet.”

Supper was welcome, but, despite the diners’ preoccupation with it, despite Tom’s and Jerry’s effort to conceal the fact of their estrangement, it became evident that something was amiss.  Rouletta finally sat back and, with an accusing glance, demanded to know what was the matter.

The old men met her eyes with an assumption of blank astonishment.

“’Fess up,” she persisted.  “Have you boys been quarreling again?”

“Who?  Us?  Why, not exactly—­”

“We sort of had words, mebbe.”

“What about?”

There was an awkward, an ominous silence.  “That,” Mr. Linton said, in a harsh and firm voice, “is something I can’t discuss.  It’s a personal matter.”  “It ain’t personal with me,” Jerry announced, carelessly.  “We was talkin’ about Tom’s married life and I happened to say—­”

“Don’t!” Linton’s cry of warning held a threat.  “Don’t spill your indecencies in the presence of this child or—­I’ll hang the frying-pan around your neck.  The truth is,” he told Letty, “there’s no use trying to live with a horn’ toad.  I’ve done my best.  I’ve let him defame me to my face and degrade me before strangers, but he remains hostyle to every impulse in my being; he picks and pesters and poisons me a thousand times a day.  And snore!  My God!  You ought to hear him at night.”

Strangely enough, Mr. Quirk did not react to this passionate outburst.  On the contrary, he bore it with indications of a deep and genuine satisfaction.

“He’s workin’ up steam to propose another divorce,” said the object of Tom’s tirade.

“That I am.  Divorce is the word,” Linton growled.

“Whoop-Ee!” Jerry uttered a high-pitched shout.  “I been waitin’ for that.  I wanted him to say it.  Now I’m free as air and twice as light.  You heard him propose it, didn’t you?”

“Wat you goin’ do ’bout dis lay?” Toleon inquired.

“Split her,” yelled Jerry.

“Dis cabin, too?”

“Sure.  Slam a partition right through her.”

“We won’t slam no partition anywhere,” Tom declared.  “Think I’m going to lay awake every night listening to distant bugles?  No.  We’ll pull her apart, limb from limb, and divvy the logs.  It’s a pest-house, anyhow.  I’ll burn my share.”