out the ability to pay for a bag of Green Goose
tobacco. The Makimmons had never been thrifty
...in the beginning they had let their wide share
of valley holding grow deep in thicket, where they
might hunt the deer, their streams course through
a woven wild where pheasant might feed and fall
to their accurate guns.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars," Valentine Simmons
repeated pleasantly.

"I haven't got it, and can't get it, all at once,"
Gordon reiterated in a conciliatory manner. Then
his straining, chafing pride, his assaulted self-esteem,
overflowed a little his caution. "And you
know it," he declared in a loud, ugly voice; "you
know the size of every pocketbook in Greenstream;
I'll bet, by God, you and old man Hollidew know
personal every copper Indian on the pennies of the
County."

Valentine Simmons smiled at this conception.
Gordon regarded him with hopeless, growing anger:
Why, the old screw took that for a compliment!

"This is Wednesday," the storekeeper pronounced;
"say, by Saturday... the sum I mentioned."

"It can't be done." The last vestiges of Gordon's
control were fast melting in the heat of his
passion. Simmons turned to the narrow ledger,
picking up a pen. "When you bought," he re-

[[44]]

p043 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p044w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p045

v?