"What sort of a burgh is it? I don't think I'd like bein' bossed by a lot of smokes, though most of 'em is regular, at that. I knew some nigger cops in Chi that never looked to frame a guy."
"You wouldn't be bothered by any policeman where I'm going," Smith assured him; "there are none."
"Geeze! You don't say? But get me right, mister, I ain't worried about no cops—they ain't got nothin' on me. Though I sure would like to go somewhere where I wouldn't never see none of their ugly mugs. You know, Mister," he added confidentially, "I just can't like a cop."
This young man puzzled Lafayette Smith the while he amused him. Being a scholar, and having pursued scholarly ways in a quiet university town, Smith was only aware of the strange underworld of America's great cities to such a sketchy extent as might result from a cursory and disinterested perusal of the daily press. He could not catalog his new acquaintance by any first hand knowledge. He had never talked with exactly such a type before. Outwardly the young man might be the undergraduate son of a cultured family, but when he spoke one had to revise this first impression.
"Say," exclaimed Danny, after a short silence; "I know about this here Africa, now. I seen a moving pitcher once—lions and elephants and a lot of foolish lookin' deer with funny monickers. So that's where you're goin'? Huntin', I suppose?"
"Not for animals, but for rocks," explained Smith.
"Geeze! Who ain't huntin' for rocks?" demanded Danny. "I know guys would croak their best friends for a rock."
"Not the sort I'm going to look for," Smith assured him.
"You don't mean diamonds then?"
"No, just rock formations that will teach me more about the structure of the earth."