He glanced at the steam-gage, and the indicator pointed steadily at sixty degrees of steam. Skeeter’s terrified eyes had played a trick on him!
“Gosh!” Pipe Smash exclaimed with a wicked grin. “I never had no idear dat steam-gage wus gwine skeer dem coons. I had a notion dey would leave dis boat when dey got kotch in de big wash of de steamboat gwine up de river. I wus plannin’ on dat.”
He stooped and threw a shovelful of coal into the furnace, and chuckled aloud:
“I fergot to tell Skeeter dat de furnace of dis engine wus so little dat nobody cain’t git up mo’ dan sixty pounds of steam—’tain’t no danger of dis engine bustin’ onless de b’iler runs dry. Excusin’ dat, dis here indicator cain’t slip aroun’ five times like Skeeter said it done—after it gits past dat biggest number on de gage, it hits a peg! I figger dat Skeeter was skeart!”
Pipe walked to the stem of the boat and shading his eyes looked up the river to the Tickfall landing. He waved his hat in the air and whooped, making more noise than his steamboat whistle.
Standing upon the shore, dripping puddles from their water-soaked garments, the Tickfall quartet heard that ironical whoop.
Broken-hearted and disconsolate, they watched their boat move serenely around the lower bend and pass out of sight in the gold and purple haze of the setting sun.
Returning to Tickfall in the automobile, the four negroes made much talk over the loss of the Mud Hen.
“We bought dat boat good an’ hones’ wid real money,” Skeeter mourned. “Pipe Smash stole it from us.”
“Mebbe so,” Vinegar Atts growled. “But it ’pears to me like we left dat boat in de middle of de river, an’ dat’s jes de same as givin’ it to any nigger dat’s willin’ to ketch holt.”