Just before quitting-time Tallow and Binney came back to the mill and we all went into the office to find out what they had found out.

“Where’d you l-leave Wiggamore?” says Mark.

“Hotel,” says Binney. “Went up to his room to git ready for supper.”

“How’d you git along?”

“Fine,” says Tallow. “We found Wiggamore and another man just leaving the hotel, and we walked along right behind. They done a lot of talking about rainfall and dams and power, and then mentioned our dam, and Wiggamore says there was a little difficulty there, but it wasn’t worryin’ him, ’cause he figgered to be able to git our property about whenever he wanted to. ‘What’s worryin’ me more,’ says he, ‘is that piece across the river. They call it the Piggins Meadow,’ he says. Then he says to the other man: ‘That’s why I got you down here. I look to you to take care of it. We’re going to see Miss Piggins now. I’ve explained about it before.’

“‘Yes,’ says the other man.

“Well, we mogged along till we come to Miss Piggins’s house, and they went up and rapped on the door. Binney and I walked past, and then come back over the side fence and got under the parlor window, because we knew Miss Piggins would take them in there like she always does partic’lar company. I guess maybe there’s three or four folks gets into that parlor in a year. She’s awful choice of it. Anyhow, she took Wiggamore in, and we could hear plain what was said, on account of her bein’ deef and Wiggamore and his man havin’ to holler. Miss Piggins always hollers, anyhow, so we was safe to hear all that was said:

“‘Miss Piggins,’ says Wiggamore, as loud as he could beller, ‘we’ve come about that land across the river.’

“‘Hand across the river?’ says she. ‘What be you talkin’ about, anyhow? Hand, did you say?’

“‘Land,’ says Wiggamore, ’most bustin’ his throat.

“‘Meadow,’ says his friend, yellin’ louder than he did.

“‘Widow?’ says Miss Piggins. ‘I hain’t no widow. I’m a old maid and I’m proud of it. ’Tain’t ’cause I have to be, neither. I’ve had chances enough, goodness knows, but I hain’t never seen the man that I’d work and slave for the way wimmin does.’

“She was goin’ on at a great rate, gettin’ up more steam every minute, and Wiggamore and his friend was lookin’ at each other like they wanted to up and hit somebody with a club. But they couldn’t stop her. She was gettin’ things off’n her mind about men, and she was bound to git ’em off. I’ll bet she went on for fifteen minutes without takin’ a breath. Then she stopped up sudden and says, ‘What was you wantin’ to see me about?’

“‘Your land,’ says Wiggamore so’s you could’a’ heard him to Sunfield.

“‘My hand? What about my hand?’ Then she sort of giggled and lopped her head over and acted like a kitten that sees a mouse, only don’t want to let on it sees it. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘I don’t hardly know you, and I hain’t had sich a thought in my mind. ’Tain’t scarcely usual to come askin’ for a lady’s hand with company along,’ says she.

“‘Sufferin’ mackerel!’ says Wiggamore. ‘She thinks I’m wanting to marry her!’ Then he got up and walked over to her real close and yelled in her ear.

“‘I’m married,’ says he. ‘I’ve a wife.’

“‘Oh,’ says she. ‘It’s your friend, eh? What’s his name? How come he to want to marry me?’

“‘He doesn’t,’ says Wiggamore. ‘We came to talk business. We want to buy your little farm across the river.’

“‘My arm across the river? Be you crazy? My arm hain’t long enough to go across no river.’

“‘Farm,’ says Wiggamore. ‘Land. Pasture. Meadow.’

“‘Oh!’ says she.

“‘We want to buy it,’ says Wiggamore.

“‘It hain’t for sale,’ says she.

“‘Everythin’s for sale—if you get the right price,’ says Wiggamore.

“‘Nice?’ says she. ‘Why is it nice? ’Tain’t nothin’ but a field where we turn out the hogs. Nothin’ nice about it.’

“‘Price,’ says Wiggamore. ‘Money.’

“‘It hain’t for sale,’ says she.

“‘Wouldn’t you rather have good money than that old meadow that’s good for nothing but to pasture pigs?’

“‘To be sure,’ says she, ‘but ’tain’t for sale.’

“‘Why not?’

“‘It was left to me and my brother George,’ says she, ‘and I can’t sell it without him. Neither kin he sell it without me. We both own it,’ says she.

“‘But you would be willing to sell if George would?’

“‘Certain,’ says she.

“‘Where’s George?’ he says.

“‘If you was to tell me that,’ says she, ‘I calc’late I’d be a heap obleeged. I hain’t seen hide nor hair of him this six months.’

“‘He’s gone away?’

“‘You might call it that,’ says she. ‘It was on account of a hog.’

“‘But where did he go?’

“‘Hain’t I jest tellin’ you I don’t know? It was on account of a hog he went.’

“‘What about the hog?’

“‘Why, seems like he come home one night with a hog. It was a fine hog and fat,’ says she. ‘George he told me he got attracted by that hog and jest had to own it. Well, next day along comes a man lookin’ for that hog, and the sheriff was with him. He let on the hog was his and that George jest up and took the hog and run off with it. Wa-al, when George seen the sheriff come into the front door, he went out of the back door, and that’s the last I’ve seen or heard of him.... Seems like a lot of fuss to be makin’ over a hog.’

“‘And you don’t know where he is?’

“‘No more ’n I know where General Jackson’s aunt’s sister’s apple butter is kept.’

“‘But couldn’t you find him?’

“‘How’d I find him? Tell me that. Stick my head out of the winder and holler? Lemme tell you, when a man up and steals a hog and goes away on account of the sheriff comin’ to call, he hain’t goin’ to be found if he kin help it. George never did think much of sheriffs, and if you was so much as to mention jail to him, he’d fair have a conniption fit.’

“‘If I fix it up with the man that owned the hog and with the sheriff, will you try to find him?’

“‘You go fix it first,’ says she. ‘But I hain’t the least notion where to look. Maybe he’s up and skedaddled for Africa or Chiny or one of them places. He was always talkin’ about goin’ to see them Chinee folks. Seems like he was a heap int’rested into ’em.’

“Well, Wiggamore and his friend looked at each other and waggled their heads, and got up to go. ‘If you hear from George,’ says Wiggamore, ‘you let me know. We want to buy that piece of land and we’ll pay well for it.’

“‘Hain’t no well on it,’ says she. ‘We jest use it for the hogs.’

“Then Wiggamore and the man got out as fast as they could, lookin’ like somebody had just stole their dinner from under their noses. They stopped at the gate and used up a lot of language sayin’ disagreeable things about George and Miss Piggins, and alludin’ to folks that stole hogs and interfered with business.

“‘You got to find George,’ says Wiggamore. ‘That is your job from this minute. Keep after him and find him. You know as well as I do that we’ve got to have that land. The engineers say it is the only place where we can put up our power-house. All the rest of this project falls down if we can’t get that meadow.’

“Then they went back to the hotel and went up to their rooms, and here we be.”

“F-fine,” says Mark. “You done a good job. I should ’a’ found out about this before. Zadok found it out p-pretty quick.”

“Zadok?” says I.

“To be sure. It’s what he was talkin’ about. It’s the answer to his riddle. Power-house and what a feller’s got to have he can’t git along without.” He stopped a minute, and then says: “Fellers, the most important thing in the world for us r-right now is George Piggins. Yes, sir, we got to find him, and find him b-before Wiggamore does.”

“Why?” says I.

“To git that p-pasture.”

“What we want with any pastures? We hain’t keepin’ no hogs.”

“Plunk,” says Mark, “sometimes you s’prise me. Honest you do. There’s t-times when I figger you hain’t got enough brains to wad a gun. Listen, if we git s-somethin’ Wiggamore’s got to have, what then?”

“I dunno,” says I.

“Why, he’s got to have it, hain’t he? And if he’s got to have it, he’s got to p-p-pay for it whatever we ask. Because he’s got to have it. If we git that meadow we’re in a position to t-trade with him, and make a little money into the b-bargain.”

“I guess so,” says I.

“Well,” says he, “our job is to f-f-find George, and f-find him quick.”

“How?” says Binney.

“Not by t-t-talkin’ about it,” says Mark, “but by l-lookin’. If I know George Piggins he hain’t far off. He hain’t the kind of a coot to go many m-miles from home.”

“Calc’late Miss Piggins knows?”

“No,” says Mark. “George would be mighty scairt, and he wouldn’t tell her, knowin’ how she loves to w-w-waggle her tongue. He’d be afraid of her l-lettin’ it out.”

Well, that didn’t look like much of a job—to find George Piggins. All we had to do was to search the United States and Canada and Mexico and Europe and Asia and Africa and Australia and a few other places for a man that you wouldn’t notice much, anyhow. That’s the kind of a fellow George was. You could look right at him without noticing him. He just didn’t count. He was the kind of man that would steal a hog, and when you’ve said that you’ve said quite considerable. George was one of them sloping folks. His forehead kind of sloped back into his hair and his chin sloped back into his collar and his shoulders sloped forward into his neck and his knees sloped in toward each other. There wasn’t anything bad about George even if he did steal a hog. He wasn’t the stealing kind, regular, but he didn’t ever do a thing in a hard way when he could do it easier, and he probably found it was easier to get that hog by swiping it than it would have been to buy it. He was a regular rabbit except that he couldn’t jump. He might fall off of something............