Lank Jane retired, but later clapped a misshapen ear to the door until she was driven away by her suspicious father. Then the farmer began to explain to his wife what it was all about. “This hyur stranger—I don’t know your name yit—” “Crawford! Crawford!” put in the prospector. “Crawford—Mr. Crawford—is hyur tuh buy the place ef he kin. I thought, seein’ ez how yuh’ve got a little int’est in it—third”—he was careful to add—“we’d better come an’ talk tuh yuh.” “Int’est!” snapped Mrs. Queeder, sharply and suspiciously, no thought of the presence of the stranger troubling her in her expression of her opinion, “I should think I had—workin’ an’ slavin’ on it fer twenty-four year! Well, whut wuz yuh thinkin’ uv payin’ fer the place?” she asked of the stranger sharply. A nervous sign from Queeder, whose acquisitiveness was so intense that it was almost audible, indicated that he was not to say. “Well, now what do you think it would be worth?” “Dunno ez I kin say exackly,” replied the wife slyly and greedily, imagining that Queeder, because of his age and various mental deficiencies was perhaps leaving these negotiations to her. “Thar’s ben furms aroun’ hyur ez big’s this sold fer nigh onto two thousan’ dollars.” She was quoting the topmost figure of which she had ever heard. “Well, that’s pretty steep, isn’t it?” asked Crawford solemnly but refusing to look at Queeder. “Ordinarily land around here is not worth much more than twenty dollars an acre and you have only seventy, as I understand.” “Yes, but this hyur land ain’t so pore ez some, nuther,” rejoined Mrs. Queeder, forgetting her original comment on it and making the best argument she could for it. “Thar’s a spring on this hyur one, just b’low the house hyur.” “Yes,” said Crawford, “I saw it as I came in. It has some value. So you think two thousand is what it’s worth, do you?” He looked at Queeder wisely, as much as to say, “This is a good joke, Queeder.” Mrs. Queeder, fairly satisfied that hers was to be the dominant mind in this argument, now turned to her husband for counsel. “What do yuh think, Bursay?” she asked. Queeder, shaken by his duplicity, his fear of discovery, his greed and troublesome dreams, gazed at her nervously. “I sartinly think hit’s wuth that much anyhow.” Crawford now began to explain that he only wanted an option on it at present, an agreement to sell within a given time, and if this were given, a paper signed, he would pay a few dollars to bind the bargain—and at this he looked wisely at Queeder and half closed one eye, by which the latter understood that he was to receive the sum originally agreed upon.