o himself:

"Of course, _any_ feller kin eat peanuts."

All that afternoon Cal Maggard lay hidden in the thicket overlooking his
front door and, as a volunteer co-sentinel, Bas Rowlett lay in a
"laurel-hell" watching from the rear, but their vigilante was
unrewarded.

That night, though, while Maggard sat alone, smoking his pipe by his
hearth, two shadowy figures detached themselves, at separate times and
points, from the sooty tangle of the mountain woods some mile and a half
away, and met at the rendezvous of a deserted cabin whose roof was half
collapsed.

They held the shadows and avoided the moonlight and they moved like
silhouettes without visible features. They struck no matches and
conferred in low and guarded tones, squatting on their heels and
haunches in the abandoned interior.

"He went over ter Harper's house yestiddy evenin', an' he's like ter go
right soon ergin'," said one.

"All ye've got ter do air ter keep in tech with me--so any time I needs
ye I kin git ye. I hain't plum made up my mind yit."

The other shadowy and hunched figure growled unpleasantly, then bit from
a tobacco twist and spat before he answered.

"I hain't got no hankerin' fer no more laywayin's," he objected. "Ef ye
resolves that he needs killin', why don't ye do hit yoreself? Hit hain't
nothin' ter me."

"I've done told ye why I kain't handily do hit myself. Nobody hain't
ergoin'ter suspicion _you_--an' es fer what's in hit fer ye--ef so be I
calls on ye--we've done sottled that."

The other remained churlishly silent for awhile. Palpably he had little
stomach for this jackal task and it was equally obvious that he feared
refusal even more than acceptance of the stewardship.

"Hit hain't like as if I was seekin' ter fo'ce ye ter do suthin' ye
hedn't done afore," the persuasive voice reminded him, and again the
snarling response growled out its displeasure.

"No, an' ye hain't said nothin' cons'arnin' what ye knows erbout me,
nuther. Ye hain't even drapped a hint thet any time ye takes ther notion
ter talk out ter ther High-cote ye kin penitenshery me--but thet's jest
because ye knows ye don't haf ter. By God, sometimes I think's hit would
well-nigh profit me ter layway _you_ an' be shet of ye."

The second voice was purring now, with a hint of the claw-power under
the softness.

"Thet would be a right smart pity, though. Thar _is_ one other body thet
knows--an' ef so be I got kilt he'd be right speedy ter guess ther