He was sitting there now in the light and reek of a smoky lamp, by a stove that was red-hot with no window open, and he was alone. He heard the wooden stairs creaking under the ascending tread of stranger feet, for to his acute ears footsteps were as individual as voices, and his head inclined expectantly. Tom was waiting there for a man who had written him a letter. There followed a rap on the panels, and in response to his growled permission the door opened and closed almost without sound, showing inside the threshold a man clean shaven and inconspicuously dressed. "Howdy, Saul," welcomed the seated baron of diminished powers. "I'd call hit a right boldacious thing ter do--comin' back hyar--if I stood in yore shoes." Into the furtive eyes of the visitor came a shallow flash of bravado. "Who's to hinder me, Tom?" "Young Boone Wellver's got ter be a right huge power in these parts here of late. He don't love ye none lavish, ef what folks norrates be true." Saul seated himself, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I've had run-ins with worse men than him," he declared, "and I'm still on the hoof." "On the hoof an' fattenin', I should say," graciously acceded the leader of the Carrs. "Ye've got a corn-fed look about ye, Saul." "I stayed away from home," continued Fulton, "so long as it was to my profit to be elsewheres. Now it suits me to come back, and there isn't room enough here for both me an' him." The elderly feudist surveyed his visitor with a cool shrewdness, and after a long pause he remarked drily: "Ef so be, Boone Wellver was called ter his reward, Saul, I wouldn't hardly buy me no mournin' clothes, but for my own self I don't dast break ther truce. Howsomever, when a feller hits at a snake he had ought ter _git_ hit. Thet feller thet ye hired ter lay-way him hyar of late didn't seem ter enjoy no master luck." "All he needed was a little overseein'," retorted Saul blandly. "That's why I'm here now. I've got to lay low for a while because there's still the little matter of an indictment outstandin' but the same man stands in your light and mine--we ought to be able to do some business together." "Things have changed a mighty heap," demurred Tom uneasily, but Saul laughed. "Let's change them back, then," he responded.