Throughout this interview, my conscience was a good deal exercised; and I was moved to throw myself on my knees and own the intended treachery.  But then I had Hanson to consider.  I was in much the same position as Old Rowley, that royal humourist, whom “the rogue had taken into his confidence.”  And again, here was Ronalds on the spot.  He must know the day of the month as well as Hanson and I. If a broad hint were necessary, he had the broadest in the world.  For a large board had been nailed by the crown prince on the very front of our house, between the door and window, painted in cinnabar—­the pigment of the country—­with doggrel rhymes and contumelious pictures, and announcing, in terms unnecessarily figurative, that the trick was already played, the claim already jumped, and Master Sam the legitimate successor of Mr. Ronalds.  But no, nothing could save that man; quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat.  As he came so he went, and left his rights depending.

Late at night, by Silverado reckoning, and after we were all abed, Mrs. Hanson returned to give us the newest of her news.  It was like a scene in a ship’s steerage:  all of us abed in our different tiers, the single candle struggling with the darkness, and this plump, handsome woman, seated on an upturned valise beside the bunks, talking and showing her fine teeth, and laughing till the rafters rang.  Any ship, to be sure, with a hundredth part as many holes in it as our barrack, must long ago have gone to her last port.  Up to that time I had always imagined Mrs. Hanson’s loquacity to be mere incontinence, that she said what was uppermost for the pleasure of speaking, and laughed and laughed again as a kind of musical accompaniment.  But I now found there was an art in it, I found it less communicative than silence itself.  I wished to know why Ronalds had come; how he had found his way without Rufe; and why, being on the spot, he had not refreshed his title.  She talked interminably on, but her replies were never answers.  She fled under a cloud of words; and when I had made sure that she was purposely eluding me, I dropped the subject in my turn, and let her rattle where she would.

She had come to tell us that, instead of waiting for Tuesday, the claim was to be jumped on the morrow.  How?  If the time were not out, it was impossible.  Why?  If Ronalds had come and gone, and done nothing, there was the less cause for hurry.  But again I could reach no satisfaction.  The claim was to be jumped next morning, that was all that she would condescend upon.

And yet it was not jumped the next morning, nor yet the next, and a whole week had come and gone before we heard more of this exploit.  That day week, however, a day of great heat, Hanson, with a little roll of paper in his hand, and the eternal pipe alight; Breedlove, his large, dull friend, to act, I suppose, as witness; Mrs. Hanson, in her Sunday best; and all the children, from the oldest to the youngest;—­arrived