Everybody seemed happy going home, except for a few regrets over the sow that got away, and a wail from little Ross for his lost pig. Everybody except myself. I was reflecting heavily in terms of profit and loss. All of my farm-help had given a day’s work; they would give another to-morrow, helping Snead. Four men two days meant a loss to me of eight days’ labor. Coretta would surely shame me into contributing toward new shoes and overalls for Sam. I must also count my disturbing escape from starting a feud; must even consider future entanglements on that score. Nor should I forget the emotional waste due to seeing every member of the party narrowly and frequently elude death from pitching head over heels into a rock-bed. And to its hopeless depths I must consider the probability of becoming indentured to the family of some ghost who had sacrificed his fleshly part in bringing out “my” hogs; that is, if I persisted in exploiting my claim. Snead dropped back and put an end to my list of contingencies. His voice was intimately lowered and I caught Sam’s eye following him furtively. “I hate to see a woman git the worst of it when she’s tryin’ to be fair,” he began. “You’ve got a fine hog-claim, an’ you ought to be gittin’ something out of it. How many hogs hev the boys brought in fer ye this year?” “This is the first time we’ve been after them.” “’Course, though, the boys hev been out more’n onct amarkin’ shotes?” “I don’t know about that.” “Well, I do, fer I’ve seen ’em.” He called to Sam. “Sam, how many shotes did ye git marked that day I seed ye out fer ’em?” Sam did not flinch under the attack. “We marked a fine lot,” he said. “I don’t jest remember how many. I been meanin’ to tell ye ’bout that, Mis’ Dolly, ’cause you’ll be wantin’ to ’low us something fer the markin’. It’s shore hard work. That wuz when you’s gone to Hiwassee, an’ I fergot to tell ye when you come home. I knowed you’d make it all right.” “What’s it worth to mark hogs, Sam?” “It’s _worth_ more’n ketchin’ ’em, ’cause we’ve got to ketch ’em an’ mark ’em, an’ turn ’em loose. But we’re goin’ to make it easier on you than that.” I exonerate Sam from any intention of charging me for “turning them loose.” He was merely embellishing his defense. But by a brief calculation I saw that if I gave half the value of the hogs for catching and bringing them in, and the other half, or a little less, for marking the young, I would have to pursue my profit with a microscope. Snead again took up his confidential tone. “I ain’t a man fer makin’ trouble, an’ there ain’t anybody in a hundred miles o’ me can swear I ever accused him o’ sellin’ other folks’ hogs; but I wish you’d a gone by Ham Copp’s next day an’ seed what he had in his pen. I ain’t sayin’ what, an’ I never will say what, in court er out, but I ’low you’d know yer own mark.” Sam and Len had hastily entered upon a subdued conference of their own, and just then Sam called to Snead.