I

There were two men in Tickfall to whom everybody came with their troubles—Vinegar Atts, pastor of the Shoofly church, and Skeeter Butts, proprietor of the Hen-Scratch saloon. Both were reputed among their fellows to be wise in all human experience and equal to every emergency of life upon the earth.

Generally a man in trouble went first to Vinegar Atts, after which he poured his tale into the ear of Skeeter Butts. Each of these modern solons gave the troubled one some expert advice; then the preacher and the barkeeper got together and held a consultation, in which, as in a consultation of physicians, the diagnosis of each was confirmed, but the treatment was changed.

This time it was Shin Bone in trouble. Shin was the proprietor of a hot-cat eating-house, which made him and his wife very popular in the community, for there seems to be a natural affinity between a colored person and a piece of fried catfish.

“Whut ails yo’ mind, Shin?” Vinegar asked as Shin sat down on the cabin porch, dropping his old wool hat at his feet.

“I’s in deep troubles,” Shin said sorrowfully.

“A nigger’s trouble is like de rainbow—’tain’t got no end,” Vinegar philosophized. “But I don’t turn no nigger friend down because his troubles won’t terminate. I’s willin’ to he’p you fer any amount up to one dollar.”

“’Tain’t money troubles,” Shin said. “My bizzness is doin’ fine, but I ain’t gittin’ along so powerful good in my fambly.”

“You ain’t got no fambly, excusin’ Whiffle an’ yo’ baby,” Vinegar observed.

“De baby is all right,” Shin explained; “but Whiffle ain’t doin’ so well.”

Vinegar sat for a while in an expectant attitude, waiting for Shin to go on with the narration; but Shin found it hard to tell what he had come to say. He made several abortive efforts to get his mouth to going which got no further than a wretched silence and made him look like an idiot.

“Well?” Vinegar bellowed. “Why don’t you say somepin? You ack like one of dese here deef an’ dumb mutes celebratin’ de Fo’th of July wis noiseless powder.”

“My ailment is dis,” Shin said desperately, speaking the words in a rush, as if in a hurry to get the confession over. “My wife, Whiffle, is payin’ entirely too much attention to yuther nigger men.”

Vinegar drew a corncob pipe from his pocket and took a long time to light it, while his attention seemed to be concentrated upon a row of dead trees whose snaggy branches were visible on the Little Mocassin Ridge, four miles away.

Shin fidgeted and twiddled his thumbs. Finally he reached down at his feet for his wool hat, and began to gnaw at its brim, as if he were starving to death. He had chewed nearly around the circuit of the brim before Vinegar took his eyes off the old dead trees; and even then Vinegar merely looked at him and said nothing.

“Yes, suh,” Shin continued, finding it easier to talk now that he had made a start. “I always believed dat Whiffle wus jes’ as good frien’ to me as a wife nachelly gits to be, but now I done changed my mind.”

“Who is de man whut runs atter her?” Vinegar asked.

“I don’t know, an’ I cain’t find out,” Shin responded. “Of co’se, no nigger man ain’t gwine come to see her when I’m hangin’ aroun’. Whoever is courtin’ Whiffle comes to de back door of de resteraw when I’m out in town somewhar.”

“Mebbe it’s some of her kinnery dat has sneaked back to town an’ ain’t hankerin’ to be perceived, especially by de police.”

“It couldn’t be none like dat,” Shin replied. “Whiffle ain’t got but one kinfolks, an’ dat wus her brudder. Dat brudder is plumb absent fer good an’ all. You knows whut happened to him, don’t you?”

“Naw, suh,” Vinegar answered, scraping his head with the palm of his hand to stir his recollection.

“It come to pass at our weddin’,” Shin told him. “Atter we got hitched, a passel of niggers moseyed over to our house to wish us a fussless married life an’ git a sasser of ice-cream an’ cake. Us soon gobbled up our vittles, an’ I gib her brudder, Pewter Boone, a ten-dollar bill to go git some more eats. He went.”

“Well?” Vinegar snapped. “Go on wid de story.”

“Dat’s all,” Shin responded. “As I tole you, Pewter went. He tuck my ten dollars an’ jes’ nachelly abandoned me. He ain’t never come back, an’ I’m got a hunch dat he’s gwine till yit.”

“I don’t remember when dat nigger lived in Tickfall at all,” Vinegar said.

“He didn’t live here,” Shin said impatiently. “He got his raisin’ in N’Awleens. Jes’ dropped in day o’ the weddin’ an’ then dropped out before I even took time to get a good look at him. But dat Pewter nigger ain’t got nothin’ to do wid dis. Us is done side-tracked an’ got off de subjeck.”

“Whut does you want me to do?” Vinegar asked.

“Keep yo’ eye out fer me, an’ find out who dat nigger is whut hangs aroun’ Whiffle.”

“Naw, suh,” Vinegar said promptly. “I don’t monkey wid no love scrapes. I’m a exput in givin’ religious advices, but I ain’t no mattermony-fixer. I declines.”

“Who muss I take my troubles to?” Shin asked desperately.

“Tell yo’ sorrers to de barkeep,” Vinegar chuckled. “You knows as well as I do dat Skeeter Butts is de exput mattermony-fixer of dis town.”

Shin placed his hat on his head and stood up.

“I aimed to ax Skeeter, too, Rev’un, but I decided to come to see you fust.”

“Dat wus right,” Vinegar applauded. “I loves to git fusters on eve’y scandal in town.”

II

When Shin Bone revealed his trouble to Skeeter Butts, the situation delighted the very soul of the barkeeper.

“At de fust off-startin’, my notion is dat a lot of hongry niggers is hangin’ aroun’ yo’ kitchen beggin’ fer free vittles,” he told Shin. “Whiffle ain’t figgerin’ on bustin’ up her happy home by runnin’ off wid some yuther nigger man. I know she ain’t got no husbunt to brag on, but she done de best she could at de time, an’ husbunts ain’t improved so much dat she aims to lop you off.”

“Kin you kinder watch aroun’ an’ see who it is dat’s hangin’ aroun’ de kitchen?” Shin asked.

“Why don’t you do yo’ own watchin’?”

“I cain’t git close enough to see.”

“Stay fur away an’ look,” Skeeter suggested.

He rose, walked around the bar, and brought out a pair of army field-glasses enclosed in a leather case. They were handsome things. He adjusted the lenses to his vision, handed them to Shin Bone and indicated an old tree whose dead limbs pointed upward like the fingers of a gnarled and twisted hand in the Little Mocassin Swamp, three miles away. Shin placed the glasses to his eyes and uttered a yell of surprise.

“My Lawd!” he exclaimed. “I see a red-head woodpecker settin’ on one of dem limbs!”

“Suttinly,” Skeeter said. “You kin look jes’ as fur as you wants to when you look through dem glasses.”

“I ain’t aimin’ to see no furder dan a suttin nigger man,” Shin replied. “Atter I see who Whiffle’s beau is, I expecks to git a little closer.”

“How close?” Skeeter grinned.

“Close enough to shoot at dat nigger six times; an’ ef I has bad luck an’ misses wid all dem shots, I’s gwine throw brickbats at him half an hour,” Shin told his counselor.

“All you got to do is to borrer dem glasses an’ keep yo’ eye on de kitchen.”

“Whar would be a good place to hide while I watches?”

In his mind, Skeeter took a survey of all the surrounding country before he offered a suggestion. Finally he pointed to a tree half-way across the town, on a little hill, and said:

“Ef you climb up in dat tree an’ hide yo’se’f in de leaves, I figgers dat you will hab a straight line to look right at yo’ kitchen door. Ef I wus you, I’d go out to dat tree right now an’ take a look wid dese glasses.”

“I’ll shore try dat on!” Shin exclaimed. “Does dese here glasses b’long to you?”

“Naw. Dey ain’t really mine, but I’ll lend you de loant of ’em,” Skeeter said. “A feller come to dis saloon an’ borrered some money, an’ lef’ dese here spy-glasses fer s’curity. So, of co’se, dey is mine ontil he fetches back de money whut he borrered.”

III

Shin went out to the tree that Skeeter had indicated, seated himself among the branches, and directed his vision to the kitchen door of his restaurant. So powerful were the lenses that it seemed to him that the door was only ten feet away.

First appeared the Rev. Vinegar Atts. Whiffle sat upon the steps and talked to him for some time, much to Shin’s disgust.

“Dat ole fat fool said he warn’t gwine to butt into my fambly scandal,” Shin grumbled. “I knowed he couldn’t keep hisse’f out. He sniffs aroun’ atter yuther people’s sins like a smell-dog!”

Some minutes later he brought his glasses again to bear upon the kitchen, and was disgusted to find Skeeter Butts on the steps.

“Dat nigger oughter hab sense enough to keep away from dar,” he grumbled. “He oughter watch when he knows I ain’t watchin’.”

Shin’s perch in the tree became very uncomfortable before Skeeter left. Then his long waiting was rewarded.

A strange man came to the kitchen door, and Whiffle rushed out to meet him with every manifestation of delight. They sat down together, and Whiffle left no doubt in the mind of her jealous, watchful husband that she was enamored of this new negro.

For more than an hour Shin hardly took the glasses off the man’s face. For a while he had the idea that he had seen the visitor somewhere before, but this impression gradually vanished.

He decided that the stranger was a city negro, because of his easy manners. His quick-moving lips showed that he spoke readily, and he carried himself in a way that suggested a soldier. He had typical Ethiopian features, and was what the negroes call “brown-skin.”

“Dat is one of dese perch-mouthed city niggers wid big ideas an’ small judgment,” Shin grumbled as he climbed down from the tree. “I think I’m done watchin’ him to-day. I’ll climb up here an’ hab a little session wid dat nigger to-morrer.”

When he got back to his place of business he found Whiffle just as she had been for several days, bubbling over with excitement and laughter, her nerves atingle with some great secret.

“Whut ails you, Whiffle?” he growled. “You ack like you done seen about seben angels or had about ’leven drams. I ain’t had nothin’ to perk me up like you is.”

“I don’t tell eve’ything I knows, Shinny,” she laughed, all unconscious of the clouds of jealousy which had gathered over him like a storm above a mountain peak. “A nigger husbunt hadn’t oughter know too much.”

“Why oughtn’t dey know too much?” Shin snapped.

“Because dey’s apt to lead deir wives a dance,” Whiffle snickered.

“Huh!” Shin grunted. “I’s like a jackass—I ain’t got no year fer music an’ no foot fer dancin’!”

Then he went and loaded his pistol and slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

IV

When Shin described to Skeeter Butts the strange man he had seen at the kitchen door, Skeeter evinced great surprise.

“Dat’s de picture of de man whut borrered some money from me an’ gib me dem spy-glasses fer s’curity!” Skeeter exclaimed. “You is spyin’ on dat man wid his own spy-glasses.”

“Ef you’ll borrer dat nigger’s pistol, I’ll shoot him wid his own gun,” Shin said.

“You git dat shootin’ notion off’n yo’ mind!” Skeeter snapped. “Dar is bigger fish in de bayou dan you ever fried in yo’ resteraw, an’ dar is better nigger women in de worl’ dan dat blockhead Whiffle gal you’s got in yo’ kitchen.”

“She suits me, an’ ef anybody tries to git her dar’s a right smart chance fer fun’rals!”

“Mebbe so,” Skeeter said; “but she ain’t wuth fightin’ fer, especially when a fight will land you in de jail-house.”

“Mebbe I kin think up some yuther way to chase dat nigger out of town,” Shin said: “but de best way I knows of now is to shoot at him till he gits good an’ skeart, an’ den throw rocks.”

“Dat’s de favoryte nigger way of chasin’ coons,” Skeeter agreed; “but don’t git to shootin’ an’ throwin’ ontil I tells you to. Ef dar ain’t no better way to disperse dat nigger, mebbe I’ll he’p you wid a few bricks myself.”

When Shin had gone, Skeeter hastened to the restaurant and called Whiffle out.

“Shin Bone is got jealous about dat new nigger whut hangs aroun’ yo’ kitchen, Whiffle. I ain’t know his name, but you knows him. Shin has already cleant and oilt his gun, an’ is warmin’ up fer activations. We don’t need no fust-class killin’ in dis town, so you better stressify to dat coon whut is comin’ to him an’ ’suade him to git out.”

“Is Shin a pretty good shooter?” Whiffle asked.

“He is de wuss shooter in dis town,” Skeeter told her. “He cain’t possibly hit nothin’ but a innercent standbyer, an’ dat would be a luck shot.”

“Ef dat’s de case, dar ain’t no danger,” Whiffle said easily. “He never will shoot at nobody.”

“When a nigger gits jealousy, he goes crazy in his head, an’ he’s liable to do mighty nigh anything,” Skeeter said earnestly.

“I’ll take keer of Shinny,” Whiffle laughed. “I’s mighty glad you tole me, so I’ll know whut to do.”

Skeeter returned to the saloon, and half an hour later the strange negro who was owner of the field-glasses came in.

“Skeeter, I wants to gib a free show at de nigger picnic-groun’ on de Cooley bayou dis afternoon. I invites eve’ybody, but I ’specially wants you an’ Vinegar Atts, an’ I would like to hab a nigger named Shin Bone.”

“How come you pick out such a crowd as dat fer special eye-witnersers?” Skeeter asked.

“A preacher, a saloon-keeper, an’ a resteraw man,” the stranger smiled. “A bunch like dat is able to supply all human needs.”

“It ’pears to me like you also needs a doctor an’ a undertaker,” Skeeter remarked; “but of co’se you knows yo’ own bizzness best.”

“You’ll know my bizzness better at de picnic-groun’,” the stranger returned.

“Us will be dar at three o’clock.”

V

A great crowd assembled at the picnic-ground. The three men specially invited were sitting under a tree, smoking and waiting. The showman came promptly on time, and shook hands with the three, but did not offer to tell his name.

“Whut name does dey call you by?” Vinegar asked.

“I ain’t got no name,” the negro grinned.

“Dat’s strange!” Vinegar muttered. “I’ll call you Stranger, fer shawt.”

Stranger carried a heavy sack, and he now untied the top and poured the contents upon the ground. There were two or three dozen marbles, such as children use in their games; there were a dozen or more small apples, about a dozen empty pop-bottles, and several dozen tops of small tin cans.

“I’s a pistol-shooter,” the stranger announced. “Ef you misdoubts my confession, jes’ take a look.”

He tossed an apple above his head; quickly he tossed two more, juggling them in the air. Suddenly from somewhere he drew a big pistol, shot three times with startling quickness, and the shattered apples dropped at his feet.

There are men who are born with the strange gift of demonstrating that the hand is quicker than the eye. In civilized sections of the country men so gifted are sleight-of-hand performers; in other sections, less civilized, they become card-sharps, with the ability to “pitch a good game” and deal themselves cards from the bottom of the deck; in still other sections, they become expert gunmen whose skill as marksmen is a wonder to behold.

The Tickfall crowd stood breathlessly watching the juggler of bottles, apples, marbles. He tossed pop-bottles in the air, and while they were spinning he shot through the neck of the bottle and broke the bottom to pieces without injuring the neck. He threw up the tin tops of the pop-bottles, and unerringly shot through the center of each. He tossed the apples into the air, and shattered them with bullets. He threw marbles three at a time above his head, and they came down in dust.

There was one man on whom this exhibition made a deep impression. Shin Bone had bragged his brags about chasing that very darky out of town by shooting at him and throwing rocks. He now abandoned his idea. That was certainly not the way to rid Tickfall of the presence of the dangerous stranger.

When the exhibition was over, the stranger turned to the three men who were especially invited and said:

“I’m much obleeged to you niggers fer comin’ out to de show. I would like to walk back to town wid you-alls, but I ain’t gwine dat way.”

“You shore is a shooter, brudder!” Skeeter exclaimed. “Ef you ain’t gwine our way, us’ll see you later.”

As the three walked back to town, Shin said thoughtfully:

“Skeeter, I think you wus right when you said not to hab no shootin’ scrape about Whiffle. De way I feels now, ef dat Stranger nigger is gwine shoot fer my wife, he kin jes’ take her along ’thout no good objections from me!”

VI

“Looky here, Skeeter,” Vinegar Atts announced, when they got back to the Hen-Scratch saloon. “Somepin is got to be did fer Shin Bone. Us cain’t let dat Stranger run off wid Shin’s wife. It’s ag’in’ conscience an’ religion.”

“How we gwine chase him?” Skeeter asked, glancing pityingly at Shin’s gloomy face. “Skeeter cain’t think up no scheme to apply to him. He don’t ’pear to be skeart to shoot it out wid nobody.”

“Dar is somepin or yuther dat eve’y nigger in de worl’ is skeart of, fellers,” Vinegar declared. “Less find out whut dat coon’s pertickler skeer is, an’ put it on him.”

“How we gwine find out?” Shin asked.

There was no answer to this inquiry, and the three sat silent for a long time, smoking their pipes in gloomy meditation. At last Vinegar sprang to his feet with a yell.

“I got it!” he howled. “A nigger is skeart of anything dat he don’t know nothin’ about. Dead folks, pest-houses, ha’nts, bein’ all by yo’ lonely in de dark, hospitals—niggers is skeart of all dem things, because us don’t know nothin’ about ’em. You cain’t ax none of dem things a decent question an’ git a respeckful respondence.”

“Whut is dat Stranger nigger igernunt about?” Shin asked, his eyes gleaming with hope.

“Pigs!” Vinegar howled. “Is you niggers done fergot dat Marse Tom pulls off his big pig drive to-morrer?”

“Dat don’t he’p us none,” Skeeter said disdainfully.

“It do!” Vinegar declared. “Us’ll git Marse Tom to put dat exput-shootin’ nigger at de shootin’-post, an’ when he sees dem wild pigs swoopin’ down on him, he’ll jes’ nachelly sprout a couple o’ feathers an’ fly away from dar. Dem hawgs will run him plumb to de Gulf of Mexico.”

“I gitcher!” Skeeter exclaimed. “Yo’ mind is suttinly popped off a noble idear. Less go see Marse Tom.”

The most interesting event of the year in Tickfall is the wild-hog hunt. Gaitskill owned the Little Moccasin Swamp, and he had let hundreds of hogs run wild in that jungle and shift for themselves. They lived on the mast and traversed the forest in bands of a hundred or more. They never fattened, being of the razorback variety; but they furnished plenty of cheap pork every year for the hundreds of negroes employed on the Gaitskill plantations.

The weather was cool, and the time had come for the fall drive. There had been no rain for months, the swamp was dry underfoot, and a great picnic crowd assembled from all over the Parish.

Hundreds of men and hundreds of dogs spread out across the swamp, fan-shape, making every sort of a noise that would drive the hogs before them to a point near the Gaitskill hog camp. Here Little Moccasin Lake upon one side and Alligator Lake upon the other were divided by a narrow ridge of land, where the slaughter of the animals would take place.

In the slaughter of the hogs care was exercised not to kill the big fighting males. They were the leaders of the herd, and when they led in a fight for the protection of the females or the young, everything cleared out of their path as before the onrush of an express train. The females were also protected. The young male hogs were slain, their flesh being tender and easily made into hams, bacon, and salt shoulders for food on the plantation.

This is one of the most dangerous games ever played in the Little Moccasin Swamp. Some of the big male hogs are six feet long and four feet high. They travel with the speed of a race-horse, and have the fighting instincts of a tiger. From their lower jaws great, ugly tusks protrude. They can run at full speed past a horse, and by an upward thrust of that lower jaw can split the flesh of the animal’s leg as if cut by a razor, or disembowel him completely.

A man in the midst of a fighting herd is helpless. When he hears an old sow pop her jaws, or sees her coming through the underbrush with a swinish roar, he will climb a prickly ash-tree or jump into a vat of tar to escape.

As the herd on this day was hedged in between the lakes and driven forward, the men heard before them, at the point where the slaughter was to be, the crack, crack, of a rifle. When at last the entire crowd had converged at the shooting-post, they found a strange negro standing with dozens of dead hogs around him. A dozen rifles were resting upon the top of a stump by his side; and as the young pigs rushed past him he raised a gun with a careless gesture, fired with seeming indifference but with absolute accuracy, and at each shot a young hog rolled over with a broken neck.

The men watched this exhibition of sharpshooting with great astonishment. The marksman never seemed to take aim, and yet never missed. Just as a man can reach up and put his finger on his nose, so this man could put a bullet through the neck of a running hog and think nothing of it.

In a little while nearly two hundred hogs were waiting for the knife of the butcher. Everybody lent a hand in the job of dressing them and loading them into wagons for their trip back to town.

Vinegar Atts, Skeeter Butts, and Shin Bone worked together. They spent a great deal of their time in low-toned conversation.

“I figgered dem wild hawgs would chase dat nigger off’n de top of de world,” Vinegar lamented as he glanced malevolently toward the stranger, who was sitting beside a stump, smoking a cigarette.

“It didn’t pester him at all,” Skeeter sighed. “He looked like he enjoyed hisse’f real good. Reckon how come dat nigger didn’t git in de army, when he kin fight an’ shoot so good?”

“De only way to skeer dat nigger is to take his guns away from him,” Shin remarked. “He feels powerful secure when he’s got a gun, an’ I feels—otherwise.”

“Me, too,” Vinegar agreed. “An’ I bet he sleeps wid dem guns on his pusson!”

Before the day was over, the marksman had been so loudly proclaimed by the white men for his skill that the negroes were feeling proud of this representative of their race and color.

The negro women of Tickfall had prepared a great dinner at the hog camp. While the negroes were eating, the distinguished stranger suddenly left the side of Whiffle Bone and walked around the table to where Shin Bone was standing with Atts and Skeeter Butts.

Shin saw him coming, and turned almost white. When the stranger thrust his hand into his pocket, Shin bleached some more; but the stranger extended toward Shin Bone not a gun, but a ten-dollar bill!

“I owes you dis ten-dollar bill, Shinny,” he said, loud enough for everybody to hear.

“I ain’t sold you nothin’,” Shin said, shaking his head and declining the proffered currency.

“Naw, suh, but you loant me dis money a good many year ago, when you got married,” the stranger replied. “You bestowed dis loose change on me to buy some ice-cream an’ cake fer yo’ weddin’, an’ I rambled up-town an’ got in a little crap-game, an’ dem bones didn’t fall right fer me. I lost yo’ money, an’ I decided I better make myse’f absent.”

“My Lawd!” Shin Bone exclaimed, reaching for the money. “Is you Whiffle’s long-lost brudder?”

“Suttinly,” the gunman answered. “My name is Pewter Boone, an’ I jes’ got back from whar we fit de Kaiser.”

“Fer Gawd’s sake, how come you didn’t tell me who you wus a whole heap sooner?” Shin exclaimed.

“I did tell Whiffle,” Pewter replied; “but I wus ashamed to ’fess up to you onless I had de money to pay you back. Soldiers of dis here gover’mint don’t do like I done—dey is true to deir trust. I borrered de money from Skeeter an’ gib him some spy-glasses fer s’curity, an’ waited till I got me a job. Now I pays up an’ squares off wid de worl’.”

Colonel Tom Gaitskill came up at this moment and announced:

“Boys, Pewter Boone is the new superintendent of the hog camp. Isaiah is too old, and I hired Pewter to-day.”

Shin Bone threw his arms around the new superintendent and expressed his delight in vociferous tones. Whiffle came over and joined them in the jubilation. The news quickly spread, and all the negroes in Tickfall welcomed the soldier.

“Look here, brudder,” Vinegar Atts bellowed. “Us niggers gib Marse Tom de recommend whut got you de job of killin’ dem hawgs. We knowed you could shoot ’em all right, but we didn’t expeck you would. We figgered when you perceived dem hawgs a comin’ through de brush, you’d skedaddle.”

“Huh!” Pewter grunted. “I don’t skeer so awful easy. All dem growlin’, gruntin’ hawgs reminded my mind of dem Bush Germuns. I jes’ nachelly craved to ’liminate ’em!”