XIV
SKEETER STARTS A BLAZE.
For the next four days Pap Curtain and Dinner Gaze tended bar in the Hen-Scratch saloon for Skeeter Butts.
Vinegar Atts and Tucky Sugg started a protracted meeting in the old Shoofly Church which was attended by throngs who listened with bated breath to Vinegar’s bawling exhortations to righteousness based upon the horrible example of Hitch Diamond, who found himself in a predicament where there was “no hope.”
Meanwhile Skeeter went to New Orleans, and to Sawtown. He tracked Hitch Diamond from the moment he left Tickfall to go to the prize-fight until he returned to Tickfall, bareheaded, barefooted, with his hands manacled behind him, and under the escort of the officers of the law.
In both places he dodged Sheriff John Flournoy, who was also conducting an investigation. Both were on the same mission, and Skeeter saw Flournoy a dozen times at different places.
Skeeter and Flournoy returned to Tickfall, crushed and hopeless, appalled at the array of evidence which Hitch Diamond had to confront at his coming trial. It was not a pretense, but a fact, that Hitch Diamond had no hope.
It was almost dark when Skeeter climbed wearily off the train at Tickfall and started up the street toward Dirty-Six. He overtook Sheriff John Flournoy walking slowly up the street.
“Whut is Hitch’s chances now, Marse John?” he asked.
“He has none,” Flournoy replied. “There is no longer a shadow of doubt in my mind that Hitch Diamond committed the crime with which he is charged.”
“Yes, suh, dat’s de way it looks,” Skeeter agreed sadly. He dropped behind, stopped, and let the sheriff go on alone. He stood leaning against a fence for a while, wondering what to do next. Finally he said to himself: