But Yancey Goree was not thinking of feuds. His befuddled brain was
hopelessly attacking the problem of the future maintenance of himself
and his favourite follies. Of late, old friends of the family had
seen to it that he had whereof to eat and a place to sleep--but whiskey
they would not buy for him, and he must have whiskey. His law business
was extinct; no case had been intrusted to him in two years. He had
been a borrower and a sponge, and it seemed that if he fell no lower
it would be from lack of opportunity. One more chance--he was saying
to himself--if he had one more stake at the game, he thought he could
win; but he had nothing left to sell, and his credit was more than
exhausted.
He could not help smiling, even in his misery, as he thought of the
man to whom, six months before, he had sold the old Goree homestead.
There had come from "back yan'" in the mountains two of the strangest
creatures, a man named Pike Garvey and his wife. "Back yan'," with a
wave of the hand toward the hills, was understood among the
mountaineers to designate the remotest fastnesses, the unplumbed
gorges, the haunts of lawbreakers, the wolf's den, and the boudoir of
the bear. In the cabin far up on Blackjack's shoulder, in the wildest
part of these retreats, this odd couple had lived for twenty years.
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