If satisfied, they began
to move slowly one way or the other and, meeting hunters presently,
would ask:--
"Here fer yer bounties?"
"Here fer my bounties," another would say. Then they both took a
long look around them.
"Wish't I was back t' the shanty."
"So do I."
"Scares me."
"Too many houses an' too many women folks."
"An' if ye wan' t' git a meal o' vittles, it costs ye three
mushrats."
Night and morning the tavern offices were full of smart-looking
men,--lawyers from every village in the county, who, having dropped
the bitter scorn of the court room, now sat gossiping in a cloud of
tobacco smoke, rent with thunder-peals of laughter and lightning
flashes of wit. Teams of farmer folk filled the sheds and were
tied to hitching-posts, up and down the main thoroughfare of the
village. Every day rough-clad, brawny men led their little sons to
the courthouse.
"Do ye see that man with the spectacles and the bald head?" they
had been wont to whisper, when seated in the court room, "that air
man twistin' his hair,--that's Silas Wright; an' that tall man that
jes' sot down?--that's John L. Russell. Now I want ye t' listen,
careful. Mebbe ye'll be a lawyer, sometime, yerself, as big as any
of 'em.
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