Spot turned and fetched a flat board from the wall. The board was about two feet long, and at either end a heavy leather thong was lashed. Francis could make neither head nor tail of it, even when Spot put the board down in front of Mr. Grimes and seated himself opposite. The children had been put to bed, but Spot’s wife came over from a stool by the fire. She was smiling, and kept smiling while she took their right arms and placed them on the board. When the arms were in such a position that the back of Mr. Grimes’s hand was against the back of Spot’s, she brought the leather thongs up and around and lashed their elbows in place. Now their arms could move neither forward nor backward, nor up at the elbow.

The two men, with their hands still back-to-back, hooked thumbs. Mr. Grimes looked at Spot, Spot returned the look, they both nodded, and the woman said, “Go!”

It didn’t seem to be much of a match at first. The object of the contest was to twist your arm and drag your opponent’s thumb down to the board by twisting his arm. At the start, Spot got the jump. Mr. Grimes didn’t stop him until his thumb was almost mashed into the board, and then only by an effort that made all the cords in his neck stand out.

They hung like that for a long time, grinning at each other, their breath coming in rasps. Then, ever so slowly, Mr. Grimes started to push Spot’s thumb back up. The thumbs stopped again when they were straight up, swung back and forth for a period of ten seconds, then suddenly plunged down until Spot’s thumb touched the board.

“Ahh!” he said. “Where’d you get all that?”

“Been practicing,” Mr. Grimes answered. “Figuring the way you whipped me last time …”

“Ha! Woman?” Spot called. “Fetch this badger three pints of brown sugar—not that he earned it, understand, but a deal is a deal.”

“Seems there’s a snake around here somewhere,” Mr. Grimes said, grinning. “I thought you didn’t have any sugar?”

“Nope—said I didn’t order any,” Spot answered. “Lots of difference. Besides, you trying to tell me you don’t have a single pelt out there in your pack somewheres?”

“Nope—got three I saved from last year.”

Francis stared at them. The betting didn’t make any sense. They both bet something they said they didn’t have, but which they really did have. He was going to ask about it, but just then Mr. Grimes suggested getting some sleep and Francis, who had been sitting with the warm glow of the fire on his back and an extremely full stomach, realized that if he so much as blinked, he would be asleep.