The old man bent over the table, and scanned the plan closely.
"Wat's dis blue wiggle lookin' like a big fish-wum?"
"That's the Tench River."
Chad continued his search, his wrinkled brown hand, with its extended forefinger capped by its stumpy nail, looking for all the world like a mud turtle with head out crawling over the crumpled surface of the map.
"Scuse me till I run down to de kitchen an' git my spec's. I can't see like"—
"Here, take mine!" said Fitz, handing him his gold ones. He would have lent him his eyes if he could have found that coal-field the sooner.
The turtle crawled slowly up, its head thrust out inquiringly, inched along the margin of the map, and backed carefully down again, pausing for such running commentaries as "Dis yer's de ribber;" "Dat's de road;" "Dis de ma'sh."
The group was now a compact mass, every eye watching Chad's finger as though it were a divining rod—Fitz full of smothered fears lest after all the prize should slip from his grasp; the agent anxious but reserved; Yancey and the judge hovering between hope and despair, with eyes on the empty decanter; and last of all the colonel, on the outside, holding a candle himself, so that his guests might see the better—the least interested man in the room.
Presently the finger stopped, and Chad looked up into his master's face.
"If I was down dar, Marsa George, jes a minute, I could tole ye, 'ca'se I reckelmember de berry tree whar Marsa John had de spyglass sot on its legs. I held de pole on de rock way up yander on de hill, an' in dat berry rock Marsa John done cut a crotch."