“Whut’s de matter wid you?” Conko Mukes bawled. “Is you gittin’ cold foots?”
“Naw. Nothin’ like dat,” Skeeter hastened to assure him, “but——”
“’Tain’t no need to git anxious,” Conko declared as he rose to go. “You go out an’ bet my money, an’ remember dat de Georgia Cyclome is a real twister.”
“Hitch is a stem-winder, too,” Skeeter declared.
As Conko Mukes tramped out of the saloon, Skeeter Butts wiped the clammy sweat from his face and sighed.
“My Lawd!” he moaned. “I tried to skeer dat nigger up so he’d be keerful, but Conko don’t take no skeer. Leastwise, he don’t talk dat way. I got de hunch dat he ain’t nothin’ but beef an’ wind an’ a loud noise. I bet I’s gwine lose eve’y bet whut I done bet. Dat’s de bes’ bet I could bet!”
“Huh!” Conko Mukes meditated as he walked slowly toward that portion of Tickfall inhabited by the whites. “Dat Skeeter Butts specify dat Hitch Diamond is some fightin’ coon. I wish I hadn’t bet dem fifteen dollars; I cain’t affode to lose ’em. I needs he’p. Wonder whar I could git some of dat hoodoo-juice?”
Professor Dodo Zodono, medium, magician, hypnotist, stood on a box in front of the Tickfall drug-store, adjusted the joints of his flute, and placed it to his lips. The sweet, piercing notes quickly drew a crowd around him.
The professor was tall and thin, with long black hair, big black eyes, a long mustache, and long, snaky fingers. His black clothes appeared to hang upon his emaciated form like draperies, a circumstance which helped him greatly in his sleight-of-hand tricks.