“I won’t hab no trouble to git my coat back. I jumped through dat winder an’ busted it to smashereens, an’ of co’se it will be open.”
He sneaked up to the house from the side nearest to the woods, and approached the window with the utmost caution. Climbing in over the broken frame, he felt about the room until he located his coat. Thrusting his hand into the inside pocket, he brought it out empty.
“Dey’s gone!” he sighed. “Mo’ an’ mo’ trouble all de time!”
He stood thinking and listening until his attention was attracted by the loud ticking of a clock in the room.
“I gitcher!” he grinned. “Button said she hid de wrist-watch behime de clock.”
He thrust his hand between the wall and the clock, and in a hollow space behind the timepiece, he found the watch and the two envelopes.
“Huh,” he grunted, “dese here is shore my losted letters. De Lawd am shorely wid me.”
Climbing cautiously and noiselessly out of the window, he walked out of the front gate, and, all danger being over, he started jauntily down the street. He felt care-free and happy once more, and he began to sing.
Several hundred yards down the road Button Hook heard him, and concealed herself behind a clump of bushes. She carried a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, and she had the face and manner of one who was determined to use it.
Button had been hunting through all the negro settlements of the town for the man who was now approaching, singing at the top of his voice. She listened to the song with an ugly smile upon her lips: