If Uncle Bill felt his exile or harbored resentment at being treated like a leper he was too proud to give any sign. There had been but little change in the Hinds House in a year. Only a close observer would have noted that it had changed at all. There was a trifle more baling-wire intertwined among the legs of the office chairs and a little higher polish on the seats. The grease spots on the unbleached muslin where Ore City rested its head were a shade darker and the monuments of "spec'mins" were higher. The Jersey organ had lost two stops and a wooden stalagmite was broken. "Old Man" Hinds in a praiseworthy attempt to clean his solitaire deck had washed off the spots or at least faded them so that no one but himself could tell what they were. The office was darker, too, because of the box-covers nailed across the windows where a few more panes had gone out. Otherwise it might have been the very day a year ago that Judge George Petty had lurched through the snow tunnel jubilantly announcing the arrival of the stage. Only this year there was no snow tunnel and the Judge was sober--sober and despondent. His attitude of depression reflected more or less the spirit of the camp, which for once came near admitting that "if Capital didn't take holt in the Spring they _might_ have to quit." "Anyway," Yankee Sam was saying, lowering his voice to give the impression to Uncle Bill at the window that he, too, had affairs of a private nature, "I learnt my lesson good about givin' options. That were our big mistake--tyin' ourselves up hand and foot with that feller Dill. Why, if a furrin' syndicate had walked in here and offered me half a million fer my holdin's in that porphory dike I couldn't a done a stroke of business. Forfeit money in the bank after this for Samuel. But if ever I lays eyes on that rat--" Yankee Sam glared about the circle--"you watch my smoke! Mind what I tell you." "What about the deal he give me on The Prince o' Peace?" demanded Lannigan. "Look what he cost me! The money I spent on them stamps writin' to know what was doin' would a kept me eatin' for a month. Maybe you think because I don't roar much I ain't angery. If I had the price I'd hire somebudy regalar to help me hate that feller!" "I hold that he's worse than robbed me!" Judge Petty struck his knee with a tremulous fist. "He took one whole year off'n my life, that's what he's done--pure murder, ain't it? Expectin' to sell every mail, all summer, and then bein' disappinted has shore took it out of me. Made an ol' man of me, as you might say, as was hale and hearty. I might have knowed, too; you had only to look in his face to see what he was! 'Crook' was wrote all over him. There's a law for the likes o' Wilbur Dill--false pretenses."