Then the medicine which Skeeter prescribed began to take effect, and Pap Curtain felt the revival of his faculties and his strength. He staggered to his feet, stumbled out of the rear door, and disappeared. He went straight to the home of Sugar Sibley, and found Sugar in the wildest hysterics.
Weepingly she told him the tale of her gains and of her great loss. Pap could sympathize with her, for on the day before he had experienced both himself.
Finally Pap said:
“Shut up, Sugar. You done lamented a plenty. Dem niggers whut stole dat money is gone out to de old fish-camp to ’vide it up. Ef you rides out dar right now, you kin ketch ’em at it!”
Twenty minutes later Sugar Sibley stopped Doodle-Bug behind a thicket at the old fishing camp on the Dorforche Bayou, and peered over the top of the bushes where she could hear masculine voices in hot debate.
In fact, it had been a day of such frenzied finance for the five negroes that an expert accountant could not have told what would be an equitable division of their spoils. So the thieves had fallen out, and their voices were raised to high pitch.
What Sugar saw filled her heart with hope and gladness.
Skeeter Butts, with a pile of money lying between his knees, was sitting on the ground, four other negroes watching the count, stopping at intervals to quarrel, but listening to the refrain of Skeeter as it crooned to the musical accompaniment of falling coins:
“A dollar fer me, a dollar fer Hitch, a dollar fer Mustard, a dollar fer Figger, an’ a dollar fer Prince!”
Their business was interrupted by a loud whoop.