Through the rails of the fence Bud Goble watched Toby until he disappeared in the quarter, and then he crept up to the log. In ten minutes more old Toby's money was tightly buttoned under the breast of his coat, and Bud, highly elated with the result of his morning's labor was taking long strides toward his cabin.
"I aint got the dress an' shoes I promised to have for ye when I come home," said Bud, when he burst in upon his wife, whom he found engaged in her usual occupation—sitting in front of the fire with her elbows upon her knees and a cob pipe between her teeth. "Old man Bailey wouldn't trust me, but Toby wasn't so perticular. He hid this here stockin' under a log, an' bein' afeared that the hogs might come along an' root it up an' carry it away, I jest thought I'd take keer on it for him," added Bud, laughing loudly at his own wit.
The woman's eyes glistened as she thrust her bony arm into the stocking and brought out a handful of shining silver coin. She would have her dress now in spite of old man Bailey; and as for Toby—she gave scarcely a thought to the consternation and alarm that would almost overwhelm him when he discovered his loss, for a field hand had no business to have a stocking half-full of money, when white folks did not know where their next meal was coming from. Her only fear was that Mr. Riley might somehow learn that Bud had taken the money, and then there would be trouble.
"You must look out for that yourself," Bud declared. "I've done my part, an' if you can't hide the stockin' where nobody can't find it, an' keep a still tongue in your head about our havin' it, you aint the woman I take you for. Now give me what you think your dress'll cost, an' a trifle more to put in bacon an' meal, an' I'll go an' get 'em."
His wife complying with the request, Bud hung his rifle upon its hooks over the fireplace and posted off to Barrington, where a surprise, that was not altogether an agreeable one, awaited him. He could not find any of his friends, but every one on the street, with whom he exchanged a word of greeting, seemed to know all about the adventures he had had that day. Bud didn't mind being told that he had permitted a little old man, who could not stand against a twelve-year-old boy, to scare him with a revolver, for he was not the only one in that scrape. Four other men had stood on the outside of the counter while Mr. Bailey talked to them as he pleased; but when folks came to joke him for being walked out of the yard by a preacher, it was more than he could endure.
"Jest let him get the grip on you that he got on me, an' he'll make the best among ye walk turkey," Bud retorted sharply. "There aint a man in town that's got any business with him, if he is a preacher. But let me tell ye: He aint by no means heared the last of me yet."
Bud saw signs of suppressed excitement on all sides and in the face of every man he met; but, conceited as he was, he could not believe that the excitement was occasioned by the incidents of which he had been the hero. They might have had something to do with the grave look he saw on Mr. Riley's face as the latter hurried by him without speaking, but Bud believed that there was something else in the wind of which he had not heard. It had such a depressing effect upon him that he transacted his business with as little delay as possible and went home.
"There's goin' to be doin's of some sort or another about yer, an' before long, too," said he, as he handed his wife the articles he had bought for her, and deposited the bag containing the meal and bacon on the floor. "I don't know what's up, but Riley an' among 'em look sorter uneasy. Mebbe that outbreak old woman, that's what's the matter, sure's you're born. That outbreak's comin', an' who knows but it'll be here this very night?"
"Good lands save us!" exclaimed Mrs. Goble, in alarm; and even her husband looked as though he would have liked to go to a little safer place than Barrington was, if he had only known where to find it.
"Yes, sir, that's jest what's the matter," repeated Bud. "Riley's somehow got wind of it, an' that's what made him look so glum. Why didn't he stop an' tell me all about it, I'd like to know. I'll jest tell him he mustn't do that a-way no more, kase it aint right long's I am workin' for that committee. Say," he continued, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. "When John Brown made that raid of his'n, Barrington was one of the places that was marked on his map to be burned, kase there was more niggers here than white folks. 'Member it, don't you?"