CHAPTER V.
SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts.
"Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab?
Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered.

"The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely.

He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously.

"It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives.

I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy.
Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out.