Part 8

Figger Bush opened a package of roman-candles, scooped up a shovel of live coals from the furnace, and laid it beside the package.

Skeeter lighted the fuses of half a dozen immense cannon-crackers and dropped them carelessly near the sleeping form of Pipe Smash.

Then the three hid themselves where they could see without being seen.

The cannon-crackers exploded with a detonation which reverberated from the immense woods, shook every piece of wood in the fragile boat, and sounded like a little war.

Pipe Smash awoke from his deep dream of peace with a loud yelp. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering what had happened.

Instantly a trail of red fire, started by Skeeter Butts, changing to blue, yellow, green, and white, spun like a flaming snake around the deck of the boat, and Pipe Smash lay back on the deck, whirling over and over like a worm on a hot griddle, whooping like a siren.

From out of the furnace door twenty-four skyrockets roared, shot out over Pipe’s head, struck the deck with a hiss changing to a loud screech, ricochetted around the boat, and burst into ten thousand stars against the puny smoke-stack and the fragile roof.

In a split second Pipe Smash was as crazy as a bug with fright.

He spun around that boat-deck like a cat in a fit, squalled and spat and screeched and scratched, rolled and tumbled, jumped to his feet and kicked, fell flat on his back, rolled over, crawled on all fours, and performed every stunt within the range of physical activity.

To his terrified vision, the _Mud Hen_ was aglow with fire, the dense woods along the river were ablaze, the water was a glowing coal-ember, and the river fog twisted and turned and folded back upon itself and became great glowing blankets of flame. Earth and sky and water were wrapped in one horrible red conflagration, while from every part of the boat the tongues of flame leaped out, licking at his cringing flesh!

Pipe Smash shrieked and went over the side.

Keeping carefully concealed, Skeeter, Hitch, and Figger seized their roman-candles, lighted them by thrusting them in the hot embers in the shovel, and peppered the water around the struggling, shrieking, diving, choking, swimming negro as far as they could see him.

Then Skeeter dropped a live coal into the keg of calcium powder, and the boat was enveloped in a red glow of smoke and fire.

Running through the deep woods on the bank of the river, Pipe Smash glanced behind him and saw his steamboat blazing to the heavens, and bade it good-by forever.

Then followed darkness and great silence while the _Mud Hen_ drifted on the current.

Early that morning, as the _Mud Hen_, in the proud possession of her rightful owners, clucked noisily up to the Tickfall landing, the reverent Vinegar Atts climbed out of the automobile, stood up on the levee, belled his gorilla-like hands around his mouth, and in true orthodox, camp-meeting tones, gave the negro’s universal shout of happiness and victory:

“Bless Gawd!”

Two Sorry Sons of Sorrow.

I

“ALL DE WORL’ AM SAD AN’ DREARY.”

Mustard Prophet, overseer of the Nigger-Heel plantation, sat on a box under a horse-shed in the rear of the Gaitskill store.

The gathering dusk of the October evening lent beauty to his sordid surroundings, and Mustard sweetened the scene by music. His thick lips caressed the silver mouthpiece of a cornet, and his bellows-like lungs sent forth strains which made all Tickfall listen:

“All de worl’ am sad an’ dreary, eb’rywhar I roam--”

Wherever music is there the negroes are gathered together. In a moment Pap Curtain entered the lot.

He was welcome because he carried a trombone.

“How come you toot sich sad toons, Mustard?” Pap inquired as he took his own musical instrument out of a dirty green bag.

“Ain’t us all sons of sorrer, Pap?” Mustard demanded in an argumentative tone. “Fo’ hundred bales of cotton raised on de Nigger-Heel plantation by me--an’ how much does me an’ Marse Tom git fer it? Jes’ perzackly nothin’ an’ not no more.”

“De white folks is argufyin’ ’bout a buy-a-bale move,” Pap began.

“Huh,” Mustard snorted. “Me an’ Marse Tom is argufyin’ ’bout a sell-a-bale move. I come to town to cornverse him ’bout dat.”

Pap’s trombone was ready, and the conversation ended with the lively strains of a duet, the refrain of which was: “De nigger hoes de cotton an’ cawn, but de white man gits de money.”

At the far end of the town a black saddle-horse emerged from the shadows of the swamp road and sailed up the sandy street with a motion as steady and rhythmical as the flight of a bird.

Balanced on the pommel of his saddle, the rider held a heavy canvas bag filled with gold and silver coins, but so easy was the gait of that superb horse that not a coin rattled. From long habit the animal stopped in front of the Tickfall bank.

The rider dismounted and walked to the door, feeling in his pocket for his keys.

Failing to find his keys, he set the bag of money on the steps and began a search of his clothes, but without success. After a moment’s thought he remounted his horse and rode down the street to his store.

The closing hour was six o’clock, and as it was nearly an hour later than that, he found the store also locked. But he stopped at the home of one of his clerks and secured a key.

Entering the building, he opened a small iron safe in the office situated in the middle of the store, placed the bag of money within, and gave the combination-knob a few quick turns.

Then hearing the lively duet in the rear of the store, he passed out into the lot. The duet came to a quick close.

“Howdy, Marse Tom?” the negroes exclaimed in concert. Then Mustard Prophet added, “I been waitin’ fer you all dis Saddy atternoon.”

“I knew it was you, Mustard,” Gaitskill grinned. “I’ve been hearing the sound of that old cornet twenty years, and I’d recognize it in China. What’s aching now?”

“Marse Tom, ain’t dese here hard times? Ain’t money skeercer dan snow in a hot biscuit-pan?”

“Just so,” Gaitskill said. “I’ve been out collecting to-day, and I know.”

“I reckin you an’ me will hab to keep on trustin’ de Lawd, Marse Tom--yes, suh, as de old Injun useter say, trus’ de good Lawd an’ keep our cotton dry.”

“What did you want to see me about?” Gaitskill asked.

“Look at dese clothes, Marse Tom!” Mustard answered earnestly. “Look at dese here empty pockets! Ain’t dey no way to sell our cotton? Don’t I git no loose change fer my year’s hard wuck?”

“Trust the good Lord!” Gaitskill grinned mockingly.

“I’m is trus’ de good Lawd, Marse Tom, but dat ain’t git me nothin’. An’ I’m jes’ ’bleeged to tell you, Marse Tom, dat while I still trus’ de Lawd I’s lookin’ to _you_ fer some good clothes an’ some money.”

“Put not your trust in princes,” Gaitskill said with solemn mockery. “Trust the Lord!”

The negro fumbled at the keys of his cornet and sighed.

Gaitskill watched him with twinkling eyes. He was the best plow hand, the best hoe hand, the best negro overseer in Louisiana, and for twenty years had been in charge of Gaitskill’s famous Nigger-Heel plantation.

Simple, confiding, good-natured, trustworthy, industrious, Gaitskill was very fond of him and would do anything in reason for him. He loved to point him out to his friends as the negro whose hard work had made the Nigger-Heel one of the show-places among the plantations of the state.

“We’ll talk about it to-morrow, Mustard,” Gaitskill proposed. “What are you going to do to-night?”

“Hopey’s lookin’ fer me up to yo’ house, Marse Tom,” Mustard declared, all his gloom gone. “I ain’t saw dat wife of mine sence all dis here war trouble come on me.”

“I want you to sleep in this store to-night,” Gaitskill said. “Pile up some of the empty oat-sacks in the rear of the store and make a bed.”

“Yes, suh. I’ll take keer of eve’ything. You knows me, Marse Tom. Gimme de key!”

Gaitskill passed over the door-key and the negro followed him through the store to his horse.

“Marse Tom,” he said, as Gaitskill was mounting his horse, “’bout dis here war in Yurope; I don’t see no signs of no war in Yurope. Now, I figgers it out dis way: de Yanks up Nawf is done bought up all de newspapers an’ dey’s skeerin’ us wid all dis war-talk so dey kin run de price of cotton down an’ all us pore niggers----”

“Aw, shut up!” Gaitskill said.

Mustard watched the horseman until the dust and dark swallowed him up far down the street. Then he turned back into the store with a grin:

“Dat white man ain’t onsottlin’ his mind ’bout no war. He owns a bank!”

Mustard locked the front door, shutting himself in, then passed through the rear door into the lot where Pap Curtain was still waiting for him.

“Pap,” Mustard began, “does you know how come a nigger wucks wid his hands, while the white man figgers and counts his money?”

“Naw.”

“Well, suh, hit happened this way: A nigger, a Injun, an’ a white man wus playin’ seben-up under de shade of a tree. De good Lawd dropped down a box of tools right close to whar dey wus settin’, an’ all of ’em hopped up to git whut wus comin’ to ’em. De nigger wus hoggish an’ he grabbed de bigges’ things, an’ he got a shovel, a hoe, an’ a spade. De Injun, he had to hab his’n, so he grabbed de bow ’n’ arrer. Dar warn’t nothin’ lef’ fer de white man but a pen, so de white man, he figgers!”

“Yes, suh, dat’s whut de good Book say. But I’s heerd tell it diffunt.”

“How’s dat?” Mustard asked.

“De good Lawd made a nigger, a white man, an’ a Injun outen good clean mud. Atter de dirt had dried real good, He fotch ’em befo’ de big white jedgment seat.

“He say to de white man: ’Whut you gwine do?’ De white man specify: ‘I’s gwine be a merchant.’ Den He say to de Injun: ‘Whut you gwine do?’ De Injun spoke Him back: ‘I’se gwine hunt and fish.’

“Den He say to de nigger: ‘What you gwine do, cullud pusson?’ De nigger, he claw his head an’ ’spon’: ‘Dunno, boss. I reckin I’ll jes’ foller atter de boys. Mebbe dar’ll be cold vittles lef’ over fer me!’”

“Dat’s shore a true sayin’, Pap,” Mustard grinned. “An’ dat reminds my mind. Marse Tom didn’t say nothin’ ’bout me gittin’ my supper nowhar.”

“White folks cain’t turn a dog in a meat-house or a nigger in a sto’-house an’ especk him to starve to death,” Pap suggested.

“An’ of co’se, white folks cain’t be mad ef de dog or de nigger gives a invite to his frien’,” Mustard grinned. “Come in, Pap, less git somepin to eat!”

In the rear of the store they switched on an electric light, set out an empty box to serve for a table, and began a search for food. There was plenty of it, and they helped themselves and each other with extravagant liberality.

For a long time utterance was impeded by food, but at last Pap Curtain managed to articulate a query:

“Mustard, wid all dis grub in dis ration-house, how come ole Miss Mildred Gaitskill is so skinny an’ Marse Tom ain’t no fatter dan he wus when we fust knowed him fawty year ago?”

“Fattenin’ hogs ain’t in luck,” Mustard told him philosophically. “When you gits all you wants to eat, look out for de butcher! Escusin’ dat, white folks ain’t studyin’ ’bout somepin to eat. Dey studies money.”

“Huh,” Pap sighed, as he rubbed his stomach, then rose and walked around the store to make room for more food. “I wouldn’t mind a invite to hold dis fer a _constant_ job--plenty of steady sleep an’ reg’lar rations.”

“I’s got to whar I kin still chaw, but I cain’t swaller much mo’,” Mustard lamented. “Less hunt somepin kinder loose an’ little to eat, so it’ll fill up de cracks inside us!”

The hours passed.

At last Mustard leaned back in his chair. His stomach was gorged, his head blood-flushed until his temples throbbed like drums. He kicked over the box which had served as a table, thus dumping the cans and bottles and other empty receptacles into a corner of the store and rose to his feet.

“Whar is de seegaws in dis sto’?” Pap inquired sleepily.

“I’ll git ’em,” Mustard said.

Selecting the largest cigars in stock, he wandered sleepily back to Pap Curtain. The clock in the court-house steeple tolled the hour. Mustard counted.

“Twelve!” he exclaimed. “Here we been eatin’ five hours an’ to-morrer is de secont day! Git outen dis sto’, Pap Curtain!”

Pap rose, and Mustard followed him to the rear door and shut him out.

Then, tossing his cigar aside, Mustard piled an armload of sacks in the corner, snapped off the electric light, and sprawled down upon his pallet, sinking instantly into a slumber like the lethargy of the gorged boa constrictor, or the inertia of the hibernating bear.

He was a sound sleeper.

II

THE LONE WOLF.

Slatey the Skull was a gentleman of leisure and perverted education; he was also a nitroglycerin expert, making a specialty of the application of this sovereign explosive to burglar-proof safes.

He was a child of the congested cities, loving the noise and clatter of their streets, the whir of machinery, the hum and hustle of their myriad life. But tuberculosis clutched at his panting, crumbling lungs with the pitiless fingers of death, and the ravages of the disease had changed a naturally ruddy countenance into the emaciated, soapstone-colored face which gave him the name among his fellows.

Under sentence of death, imposed, not by the law of the land which he defied, but by the law of life which defied him, he had wandered from the city to the deep woods and sparsely populated villages of the South as a wild goat leaves its fellows and crawls into some desolate mountain cave to languish and die alone.

Despairing of his own life, indifferent to the lives of others, he was a lone wolf, perilous, predaceous, as quick to strike and as deadly as a viper. His admiring fellows said of him that he could “smell money.”

Slipping like a shadow from the log-train which stopped for water at Tickfall shortly after midnight, he wandered up the crooked, silent, deserted streets toward the business portion of the village.

Pausing before the door of the Gaitskill store, his thin, flexible nostrils quivered like a rabbit’s nose. Flattening himself against the door like the wraith of a man, his keen eyes searched the streets, his acutely sensitive ears listened intently.

Then he turned, and with an ease like the magic of a sleight-of-hand performer, he opened the door and entered the store.

“I smell a nigger,” he muttered with a curse, as the stale odor of cigar smoke racked his frail body with noiseless coughing.

Leaving the front door unlocked, he walked noiselessly down the avenue between the counters to open the door in the rear. There he found Mustard Prophet sleeping on a pile of sacks, invisible to the eye, but easily vizualized by the trained mind of the Skull as he listened to Mustard’s stertorous breathing.

“A nigger,” he racked with his noiseless cough, “stuffed like a fat woman’s stocking, sleeping like a stiff!”

He walked back to the little office partitioned off in the middle of the store. His frail fingers fumbled with the combination knob of the safe for a moment, then caressed its top and sides.

“Forty years old,” he sighed, “and made of pot-metal. If I was not so weak, I’d turn it over and kick a hole in the bottom of it with my sore toe. As it is, I’ll have to work with this soup and cough like an alligator for a week with its fumes in my lungs.”

Ten minutes later the door of the safe swung crazily open, hanging upon a half-broken hinge.

The bony arm and hand of the Skull explored the contents. His fingers grasped the top of the coarse bag which Colonel Gaitskill had placed there a few hours before, and he lifted it out.

“No further seek its contents to disclose or draw its dollars from their frail abode,” the Skull parodied. “The simp put it all in one sack for me and tied the top with a rawhide string.”

His fingers fumbled the contents of the sack through the thick cloth.

“Gosh!” he sighed. “Gold and silver and a little dirty paper money--heavy as pig-iron--and I’m too weak to carry an empty pill-box across the street to a homeopathic doctor.”

Nevertheless, he took the bag with him as he started to leave. At the rear door, he paused at the pallet where Mustard lay sprawled out and a sardonic smile distorted his skull-like face.

“Behold the guardian of this gold!” he muttered. “Strange the South has been the fall guy for this sort of servant ever since the South began. Well, Cæsar had his Brutus, and every colonel has his coon!”

Then he stepped out into the lot and closed the door behind him.

There was the crack of a pistol, and a bullet plugged into the door-jamb.

“You missed, friend!” the Skull called tauntingly. “I had my sharp edge turned toward you!”

The night prowler in the Southern village seeking spoils is exposed to no danger by the night watchman sleeping sweetly on a soft stone step. The yeggman dreads the fox-hunters.

They leave town at sundown accompanied by friends, followed by dogs, comforted by the contents of sundry jugs. They are kept keyed up to alert wakefulness by the excitement of the chase and return only when the jugs are empty.

It was a party of fox-hunters, headed by Sheriff Flournoy, with whom Slatey the Skull had now to deal. Passing through the town on their return from the hunt they had heard the dull explosion in the store and had made an investigation. They were now in ambush, waiting for the appearance of the safe-blower.

It was Flournoy’s pistol which had roused the Skull to his danger.

But the Skull was not disturbed. Shifting his bag of money so that he carried it on his left arm as a woman carries a bundle, he slipped his automatic from his pocket.

Crouching low in the darkness and walking with the noiseless tread of a cat within ten feet of Flournoy, he passed unobserved by the sheriff out of the lot into the alley and on to the front of the store. The bullets zipped around him as he ran out of the alley toward the middle of the street, but the Skull’s first shot was upward at the electric street light which went out, leaving him sheltered by almost total darkness.

Running down the alley, Flournoy fired into that circle of darkness at a venture.

The answer of the Skull’s gun was instantaneous. The sheriff felt a jar which almost paralyzed his right arm. Making an investigation he uttered a low exclamation of wonder and admiration: The Skull’s bullet had struck and destroyed the sheriff’s weapon.

In the mean time the rest of the fox-hunters had been spreading out, trailing along the street in front of the store. In a moment half a dozen pistols began to shoot and the Skull was engaged in the battle of his life.

In the Louisiana villages promiscuous shooting upon the street at night is a fire-alarm. Roused by such shooting, men quickly slip on their clothes, seize their own firearms, and run down the street toward the first alarm, firing into the air as they run, thus rousing the whole town.

All over Tickfall, men heard what they thought was a fire-signal from the business section of the village. Fearful of losing their stores and offices, they ran toward the fray, shouting and shooting, until Tickfall sounded like a battle with a thousand men engaged.

“The beggars are coming to town,” Slatey the Skull quoted with a skinny smile. “I’ll wait until the mob arrives, then slip through the crowd in the dark.”

But alas, the Skull was not acquainted with Sheriff Flournoy.

Adopting the old Indian trick of lying flat on the ground, thus throwing the object he was approaching against the sky so that he could see it, the sheriff with bones like an ox and a mouth as grim and cruel as a bear-trap was slowly crawling toward the sardonic creature of skin and bones, as frail and delicate as a girl, who sat sedately beside the stolen money-bag.

Suddenly Slatey screamed like a wildcat and sprang to his feet.

Wrestling with his feeble strength, shooting wildly, biting, clawing, he struggled in the bear-like hug of the giant sheriff. Then something snapped inside the Skull’s body and with a frightened “Ah!” he sank limply into the hands of his captor.

At that moment the street was filled with armed men, white and black, looking for the conflagration. Explanations flew from lip to lip. Some one entered the Gaitskill store and turned on the lights.

Then Sheriff Flournoy entered carrying Slatey the Skull.

“Is he dead?” the crowd asked in one breath.

“I think not,” the sheriff said. “I did not shoot.”

“Gib him a leetle dram, Mister Johnnie,” Pap Curtain spoke up.

“Go over to my office and get my flask, Pap,” the sheriff commanded, as he tossed Curtain his office keys, “You’ll find it on my desk.”

Pap Curtain started after that flask at full speed. In the middle of the street, under the broken electric light, his foot struck a coarse canvas bag, he stumbled, fell headlong, butted a hitching post with a resounding whack and stayed right there.

Ten minutes later the crowd found him, unconscious, clutching the office keys in his cold hand.

One negro, a belated arrival, saw Pap Curtain fall.

He ran to Pap’s rescue, but never arrived. His foot also struck that bag. Stooping, he picked it up, felt of its contents, recognized the familiar rattle of coins, and promptly departed, taking that bag with him lest some other person fall over it and get hurt.

The sheriff had no sooner sent Pap Curtain after a flask than several were produced and tendered. The liquor, poured down the throat of Slatey, started a shudderlike cough and a bloody spume issued from the wounded man’s mouth. Then he spoke splutteringly:

“You broke a rib and caved it through the only good lung I have, Mr. Officer. I guess you win.”

“Where’s the money?” Flournoy demanded.

“I--ah--” A shuddering, racking cough stopped all speech and the pitiful creature struggled as if he were never to breathe again. At last he spoke:

“I’m suffering very much. Get a doctor--”

“Where’s the money?” several men asked in a chorus.

“That’s for you to find out,” the Skull answered, with a momentary flash of his old lawless spirit. Then weakly: “Get a doctor!”

“Where’s the money?” Colonel Gaitskill asked, bending over Slatey.

“Where’s the sawbones, Santa Claus?” Slatey mocked, coughing little flecks of blood off his lips.

“Get a doctor!” Gaitskill commanded sharply, glaring at the crowd.

Dr. Shuttle stepped forth, producing, with an important air, a pocket medical case containing a hypodermic needle and several vials of medicine.

Dr. Shuttle was young and very ambitious. He quickly made a hypodermic injection into the Skull’s side. It eased the criminal’s pain. In fact he has never suffered since. In short, he died.

“Where’s the money?” the sheriff demanded again, shaking the lifeless form.

The Skull’s mouth drooped open in a grotesque imitation of a laugh. Slatey had nothing more to say.

“Thunderation!” the sheriff exclaimed in a mighty voice. “Hunt around for that money-bag. This fellow did not get away with it.”

Oil lanterns were quickly procured and the crowd searched the street, the alley, the lot in the rear and the neighboring places. They discovered nothing but the limp form of Pap Curtain.

While the crowd was gathering around Curtain, from inside the store a mighty shout arose:

“Here’s the other one, Flournoy!”

The crowd plunged into the store, surged to the rear and gathered in a tight circle around the prostrate form of Mustard Prophet.

He was still asleep!

III

THE SLEEPER WAKES.

A number of eager feet kicked Mustard Prophet into wakefulness.

As many willing hands assisted him to his feet. He stood among them, glaring owlishly, blinded by the light, confused by the noise, frightened by the unaccountable presence of most of the male inhabitants of Tickfall.

“’Scuse me, white folks,” he began. “I shore is befuddled-up by all dis here gwines-on. Marse Tom say fer me not to let nobody in dis here sto’-house.”

“Where’s that money?” a voice demanded.

“Which?” Mustard asked.

“Where’s that money you and the white man got?”