"Why ain't you-all boys down thar whar the gals is at, playin'?" inquired Jim Cal fretfully. "Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an' not wedded I wouldn't hang around whar the old men was." "Is Creed Bonbright comin' over here to-night?" inquired Andy abruptly, in obedience apparently to a nudge from Blatch. "I reckon he is," observed the old man dispassionately. "Jude has purty well bidden the whole top of the mountain." "Is Pone Cyard comin'?" put in Jeff. The twins usually spoke alternately, the sum of their conversation counting thus for one. "That I can't say," returned the old man with mildly ironic emphasis. "Mebbe him and the chaps and the lame rooster--_and_ Nancy--will come along at the tail of the procession." "Well," persisted Andy, breaking a somewhat lengthened silence in which all the newcomers stood, and through which their breathing could be distinctly heard, "well I think Creed Bonbright has got the impudence! He come to the jail, whar me and Jeff was at, an' he had some talk with us, an' I let him know my mind. He stood in with that marshal--I know it--and so does Jeff. Pone Cyard got out quicker becaze Bonbright tipped the marshal the wink; but I don't hold with him nor his doin's." The parent of the twins regarded them both with sardonic black eyes half shut. "_You_ don't? And who-all might you be, young fellers?" he asked. "This here Bonbright man has come up on Turkey Track to give us a show at law. If they's persons engaged in unlawful practices on this here mountain top, mebbe he'll knock up against 'em. Them that keeps the law and lives decent has no reason to fear the law. Ain't that what you say, Blatch?" turning suddenly to his nephew. The big swart mountaineer drew up his shoulders with a sort of shrug. "Ef you stand in with Bonbright, Unc' Jep," he said, bluntly, "we might as well all go down to Hepzibah and give ourselves up. You've done rented me the land, and yo' boys is in the still with me--air ye a-goin' to stand from under, and have the marshal forever keepin' us on the jump?" Old Jephthah looked wordless contempt at the nephew who knew little enough to impute such a course to him. "That's what I say," put in Jim Cal's thin, querulous tones from the back of the room--the voice of a fat man in trouble; can anyone say why the sorrows of the obese are always comic to the rest of the world? "A body cain't sleep nights for thinkin' what may chance." "Oh,--air you thar, podner?" inquired Blatch, with a sort of ferocious banter in his tone which he frequently used toward his fleshy associate. "I thort ye was down in the bed sick." "I was," said Jim Cal sulkily; "but Iley she said--Iley 'lowed----" Blatch burst into a great horse laugh, which the others joined.