"
The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in
the direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an
erect, portly gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long,
double-breasted frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high
silk hat, was passing on the opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked,
Goree glanced at his face. If there be such a thing as a yellow wolf,
here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his unhuman eyes followed
the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs.
"Is that him? Why, that's the man who sent me to the pen'tentiary
once!"
"He used to be district attorney," said Goree carelessly. "And, by
the way, he's a first-class shot."
"I kin hit a squirrel's eye at a hundred yard," said Garvey. "So that
thar's Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was thinkin'. I'll
take keer ov this feud, Mr. Goree, better'n you ever did!"
He moved toward the door, but lingered there, betraying a slight
perplexity.
"Anything else to-day?" inquired Goree with frothy sarcasm. "Any
family traditions, ancestral ghosts, or skeletons in the closet?
Prices as low as the lowest."
"Thar was another thing," replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, "that
Missis Garvey was thinkin' of.
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