When the door closed behind her, Tick stood up from his hiding-place, showing a face full of tragedy and despair.
“We forgot all about dat one, Skeeter,” he mourned. “Oh, lawdy! Ef I ever gits outen dis mess, I ain’t gwine mess wid mattermony no more!”
XI
TICK FLIES THE YELLOW FLAG
Early the next morning, Colonel Tom Gaitskill heard from Hitch Diamond, who worked about his place, that Tick Hush had been held up, robbed, and shot to death.
At the bank, where Vinegar Atts worked, Gaitskill heard that a woman named Button Hook had shot Tick Hush, and that Skeeter had nursed him all night.
From Dr. Moseley Gaitskill learned that Tick had not been shot or robbed, but had been beaten over the head with some blunt instrument, and his face had been badly cut with some sharp tool.
All of which was interesting enough to induce Gaitskill to make a personal investigation.
He found Tick Hush lying upon a pallet in the rear of the Hen-Scratch saloon, and from him and Skeeter Butts he heard the whole story.
Being familiar with the details of numberless negro courtships, this lengthy narrative lacked the spice of novelty, and Gaitskill was weary long before it was finished.
At last he looked at his watch and rose to his feet.