Pap Curtain’s legs suddenly grew weak, and he sank down upon a depot truck and became silent.
He set himself to light a Perique stogy—one of the two which he had bought from Skeeter Butts for five cents—bought with Figger Bush’s money. He broke three or four matches before he got a light, and then repeatedly forgot to draw upon his cigar.
It went out again and again, and he always had trouble in relighting it. His hands trembled more and more with each successive attempt.
“Lawd!” he sighed to himself. “Dey shore got me now!”
The niggers had trusted him, and he had buncoed them all. The place where his foot had slipped was when he told them to go the bank to see Marse Tom.
“White folks always gits nigger bizzness in a jam,” he thought tearfully. “Dem niggers wus suckers, but lawdymussy, I wus shore one big whopper of a fool!”
The sweat stood in chill beads on his face. He knew what the inside of the penitentiary looked like—he had served a brief term in prison. He had tried to make friends with the “nigger-dogs”—bloodhounds—but it could not be done. He had tried to escape; that, also, was a failure.
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned me that your pockets were full of money.”