Scootie promptly hit the ground with both feet, landing by the side of Figger Bush. “Come on, honey!” she said, seizing him by the hand. “Less go quick!” “Kin I go, too?” Little Bit, the driver of the second wagon asked in a whining tone. No answer was given to him, so he jumped down and followed. From the top of the hill, they looked down to where the red brick court-house baked in the summer sun. Side by side they started toward the court-house, and the new life. On the other side of the hill, sole guardian of the grand old man in the cabin, the mocking-bird sat in the pecan tree and sang its song of love. Hoodoo Eyes. The swinging doors of the Hen-Scratch saloon fell apart and Conko Mukes walked in. He was a large man and, to look at, very impressive. The negroes in Tickfall had never seen clothes like his, so large in stripe and so variegated in color. On either lapel of his coat was a large, brassy emblem of some secret lodge. On the middle finger of each hand was a rolled-gold band ring nearly an inch wide. Across the vast expanse of his sky-muckle-dun-colored waistcoat was a gangrened near-gold watch-chain like the cable chain of a Mississippi River steamboat, and a charm suspended from it was constructed of the talons of an eagle. His ponderous feet shook the floor as he walked across the saloon and seated himself at a table. Removing his stove-pipe hat, he placed that upon one chair, kicked another chair from under the table on which to deposit his feet, and leaned back in a third chair, with his gorilla-like arms resting comfortably across the back of a fourth. The barroom appeared to be empty. “Hey, dar! Come here--eve’ybody!” he bellowed. Skeeter Butts peeped at Conko Mukes around the corner of the bar behind which he was sitting. The black face which he beheld advertised unmistakably what Conko Mukes was. It was the mug of a typical prize-fighter. The face was clean-shaven, accentuating a jaw, heavy, brutal, aggressive. His head was also shaven, and every bump on his villainous cranium stood forth like a promontory on a level plain. His eyes were heavy-lidded, lazy, sleepy-looking, like the eyes of a lion. The nose had been broken and was crooked; his thick lips had been battered in many fights until they were shapeless, and the mouth was simply an ugly gash across his face. And to complete the adornment, one ear was “tin” and the other was cauliflower, both permanently disfigured and disfiguring. Conko Mukes moved in his chair as if burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles, and his heavy-lidded eyes glowed yellow in the dim light of the saloon as he glared around him. Again his voice boomed: “Hey! Am eve’ybody done hauled off an’ died? Come out here, Skeeter Butts--whut’s hidin’ you?” “I guess dis is my move-up,” Skeeter remarked as he pocketed a handful of silver which he had been counting behind the bar and came to the table.