BLACK MAN DON'T
LET THE SUN GO
DOWN ON YE HEAR
"Say, Boss Weaver, suh," inquired a dozen uneasy voices at once, "what do that mean, suh?"
Weaver did not answer the question. He looked toward Wolfe. It was Wolfe's place to answer. But there was only silence.
The driver of the locomotive approached the foreman then. "What them mountain people gwine do to us black men effen the sun go down on us heah, Boss Weaver, suh?" he asked frightenedly.
Before Weaver could utter the "I don't know" that was on his tongue, there came from a point a few rods above in the laurel the keen report of a rifle. The white cord parted, and the piece of lettered cardboard fluttered to the ground. It was a forceful answer to the negro engineer's question.
"Good marksman, all right," Weaver observed.
"Stay right here until I come back, boys," ordered Wolfe.
He hurried up the rugged steep, searched the laurel and the rocks, and saw no sign of any one. He climbed to the top of a huge boulder, and looked in all directions from that point of vantage. Then he saw a huge, gaunt man with a rifle under his arm step from the underbrush below and walk rapidly toward the settlement of the Wolfes. It was his iron-hearted father.