"Her pet tur-rkey air dead," old man Haight presently observed disconnectedly. "Glad of it," said Jack callously. "I never seen a beast so pompered, an' fairly hanker ter git stepped on, forever flusterin' 'roun' the floor underfoot." "_She_'ll be powerful sorry. She sot a heap o' store by it, an' doctored it cornsider'ble. She 'lowed it hed the quinsy." Then after a pause, "Whenst I gits my money back," said the old man meditatively, "I be goin' ter buy S'briny Lar'bee suthin' ez will s'prise her,--I dunno what. I studies on it some mighty nigh every day. A spry young filly, mebbe, or a good cow an' calf,--I dunno. I'd gin her the money, ef she wouldn't be sure ter fool it away on them wuthless triflin' cattle of chil'n an' folks she contrives fur all the time. I'd gin S'briny half o' the cold cash, an' ennyhow I lay off ter spend half fur a presint fur her." Espey, his energies recruited by food, and perhaps willing to postpone the evil hour of shoveling and digging, looked up with a satiric eye and a rallying laugh. "Whar's my sheer, ef ye be goin' ter gin Mis' Lar'bee haffen the money? Ye 'lowed Tawm hed hed his pay in whiskey,"--he cast a side glance at the bloated slumbering face and collapsed figure in the shadow,--"an' he's hed a plenty, too, fur he's nuthin' but a cag o' liquor set a-goin' on two legs; but I'm durned ef I'll take my pay out in Mis' Timson's sour yeast an' raw dough." He twirled the empty basket over contemptuously. "Ye 'lowed that night, three weeks ago, whenst I--ye--whenst we run on one another, an' s'prised one another, ez ye'd pay me solid silver ef I wouldn't tell nobody, but holp ye; now didn't ye?" Espey's tone was so obviously that of one who speaks in flagrant jest that Larrabee perceived he gave the unknown enterprise no serious support or credence, and that he was only utilizing some preposterous delusion of the old man touching his work in the Lost Time mine to secure food to sustain him while he evaded the pursuit of the law.