“I couldn’t start on the ro’d with a circus and have the nerve to stand in front of the big tent after it and bark like I used to. There’d be somebody there a-knowin’ to it, and they’d grin me out of bus’ness. I’d be backed into the stall. No, I can’t do it. If I git to talkin’ with her again there’ll be murder done. It can’t be known that I’m havin’ any truck with her. I can’t ever see her again. You got to go down, Sime, and see what she’ll compromise for.” “It has got to be compromised, has it?” asked the other earnestly. A little gleam in his eye showed that he had something on his mind--a doubt that he wanted to satisfy at last. “Now the only way for us to go into this thing, Hime,” he said, “is for both of us to be square and open. Don’t you yap out at me that I’m nosin’ into your bus’ness or tryin’ to twit. But if you want this whole thing fixed up secret, so that--so that--” he gulped--“so that your widder up country won’t get track of it, then it’s only right for you to tell me whuther your intentions up that way is serious.” For a little while Hiram scowled at his companion in perfectly fiendish manner. “You talk about bein’ persistent!” he growled. “Talk about a bull-dog hangin’ to a tramp’s leg! For four months conversation between us ain’t ever took a turn but what you’ve tried to get your little gimlet into me. Now ’cause you’ve got me into a corner you’re out with an auger. Well, I’ll tell you, dum blast ye! I’m courtin’ Mis’ Snell, and I’m goin’ to have her if she’ll have me. There! Chaw on that gumdrop a while!” The showman glared at Peak and the latter shifted his gaze. “Much obliged,” he said. “There’s nothin’ like having straight facts to go on.” He clapped his hat hard onto his head with a hollow tunk. “What’s the final instructions?” he inquired. “Nothin’ but to settle it as cheap as you can and shet her blasted mouth,” returned Hiram, setting his elbows on his knees and looking again into the knot-hole. If he had changed his steady gaze from the knothole two hours later, it was not apparent to Simon Peak when he returned. “I wrassled with her, Hime, just as tough and tight as though it was my own money that I was handlin’. If I done it right or not I donno. I ain’t ever been used to talkin’ about so much money before. But I’ve got her beat down to,” he drew a long breath, “sixty-six hundred, and she swears she won’t take a cent less. You know how set she gits on a thing!” Hiram bored him suspiciously with his eye for a moment and snarled: “It sounds to me as though she was goin’ to get five thousand and you was pers’nally lookin’ after your little old sixteen hundred.” A couple of tears squeezed out and down over the giant’s flabby cheeks. “There ain’t a day passed since you got back from up country, Hime, but what you’ve misjudged me some way, somehow. You misjudged me years ago. You’re doin’ it this minit. And it’s all on account of some missabul woman that I’m misjudged. I wish they was all in----”