“That may be true,” replied the Captain, “but if ever you had a company out here, I should not have treated you in this kind of a manner. I should have gone around, and showed some respect to you.”
“Well,” retorted Gaston, “this is the rut I always travel in, and I don’t intend to get out of it for no niggers!”
“You don’t intend to break up our drill do you?” asked Lieutenant Watta; his yellow face growing visibly pale.
“All I want is to pass through and go home.”
“But you want to drive through our ranks.”
“No! ——. He can’t go through here,” said another voice.
“We will stay here all night before we will give way to them,” said Watta, the conversation with lawyer Elly and Uncle Jesse recurring to his memory.
“Never mind,” said Gaston with an oath, “you won’t always be insulting me. You had better stop now, for you’ll find you’ve got to.”
“Egh, Watta, don’t yos’ mind what Mann Harris said—tole that Hanson Baker, Tom’s brother, said a month ago that there’s gwoine to be the —— to pay in Baconsville pretty soon? Reckon the white folks is begun that p’ogramme he tole ’bout,” said another militia man. “He said fifteen hundred of ’em was ready to break us up, an’ of co’se Gasten’s one of ’em.”