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."
"Law!" contemptuously. "Pa" Snow spent more of his time downstairs now in a rocking chair upholstered with a soogan, where he could vent his bitterness at short range. Disappointment over the sale of "The Bay Horse" had made a socialist of him. "The law--a long way we'd get havin' the law on him! The law's no use to the poor man--he's only got one weapon he can count on; and while I've never set out to let no man's blood, if that skunk ever pokes his nose inside these premises he'll find a red-hot Southerner waitin' for him!" Mr. Snow looked so altogether ferocious that Ore City more than half believed him.
"Seems like everything this year has been agin us." The despondent voice behind the stove sounded hopeless. "Burt's proposition fizzlin' out on the river is goin' to hurt this camp wonderful. It's surprisin' how fast the news of a failure gits around among Capital. I knew the way he was startin' in to work--in fact I told him--that he never could make nothin'."