“I feels powerful sorry fer myself,” he wailed.
Wronged, abused, depressed, and hopeless, he returned to the Hen-Scratch saloon. When he entered he gasped for breath.
Dick Nuhat was sitting at one of the little tables, in an attitude of deep and solemn meditation, as motionless as a stone dog.
IV
Skeeter sat down at the same table and opened his mouth to deliver his mind of all its burden of trouble; but the white man put such a successful cloture on the colored man’s oratory that Skeeter could not speak a word for a long time.
Nuhat thrust both hands into his pockets and brought them out full of silver and currency. He did not speak a word of greeting. He merely laid the money on the top of the table and watched Skeeter’s popping eyes.
“You ought to have been at the races, Skeeter,” Nuhat said at last. “We mopped up!”
Skeeter needed no proof of this beyond the tabletop covered with money; but even yet he could not find a word to say.
“There is over six hundred dollars of it that says we win, Skeeter,” Nuhat laughed.