Meanwhile Brimstead and Harry had stood for a moment in the dooryard of the former, watching the party on its way up the road. Brimstead blew out his breath and said in a low tone:
"Say, I'll tell ye, I ain't had so much excitement since Samson Traylor rode into Flea Valley. The women need a chance to wash their faces and slick up a little. Le's you and me go back to the creek and go in swimmin' an' look the farm over."
"What become of the third nigger?" Harry asked.
"She went out in the field in a sunbonnet an' went to work with a hoe and they didn't discover her," said Brimstead.
"It must have been a nigger that didn't belong to him," Harry declared.
"I guess it was one that the others picked up on the road."
They set out across the sown fields, while Brimstead, in his most divulging mood, confided many secrets to the young man. Suddenly he asked:
"Say, did you take partic'lar notice o' that yaller nigger?"
"I didn't see much of him."
"Well, I'll tell ye, he was about as handsome a feller as you'd see in a day's travel—straight as an arrow and about six feet tall and well spoken and clean faced. He told me that another master had taught him to read and write and cipher. He's read the Bible through, and many of the poems of Scott and Byron and Burns. Don't it rile ye up to think of a man like that bein' bought and sold and pounded around like a steer? It ain't decent."