A Blackjack Bargainer 307
And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel was their compromise between Mrs. Garvey's prefer- ence for one of the large valley towns and Pike's hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel yielded a halting round of feeble social dis- tractions comportable with Martella's am- bitions, and was not entirely without rec- ommendation to Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat in case fashionable society should make it advisable.
Their descent upon Laurel had been coin- cident with Yancey Goree's feverish desire to convert property into casrr, and they bought the old Goree homestead, paying four thou- sand dollars ready money into the spend- thrift's shaking hands.
Thus it happened that while the disreput- able last of the Gorees sprawled in his disrep- utable office, at the end of his row, spurned by the cronies whom he had gorged, strangers dwelt in the halls of his fathers.
A cloud of dust was rolling slowly up the parched street, with something travelling in the midst of it. A little breeze wafted the cloud to one side, and a new, brightly painted
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