While this was going on, Zodono asked the girl: “What is your name?” “Dey calls me Goldie,” she answered, staring at Conko Mukes. “All right, Goldie. Be sure to bring the curtains back to-morrow.” But Goldie was not listening. She was watching Conko struggling with the inert form of Bill. Finally Conko stood up and strode toward the exit, his ugly black face frightened and uneasy. “What’s the matter, Conko?” Zodono called. “Going?” “Yes, suh. I’s gwine, Mr. Jimmy,” Conko answered nervously. “I--I--done got dat white man hypped, an’ I--I--cain’t unhyp him!” Without waiting for a reply, Conko passed out of the theater, trotted down the crooked alley, and hastened to the Hen-Scratch saloon. “Skeeter!” he boomed. “If you got any money to bet, you bet it on me! I’s gwine to pull a stunt on dat Hitch Diamond dis atternoon whut’ll make all de coons in Tickfall think I done borrered de debbil’s own knockout draps!” A short distance from Tickfall where the Dorfoche Bayou widened into a small lake, and where pine-trees grew thick and shady upon a sandy plain was the negro baseball park and picnic grounds. Hundreds of negroes had assembled here to witness the prize-fight between Hitch Diamond, the Tickfall Tiger, and Conko Mukes, the Georgia Cyclone. The women were as numerous as the men, and all were betting wildly on the result. Skeeter Butts, backing Conko Mukes, was in a blue funk. He had bet forty dollars, and called that the limit until Conko informed him that he possessed a hoodoo-stunt which would decide the contest in his own favor; then Skeeter had hazarded sixty dollars more. He found takers so readily that he had lost all courage and enthusiasm for his pugilist. He considered his money as good as gone. A rude, squared ring had been roped off on the edge of the little lake by the simple process of stretching the rope from one sapling to another as a woman fixes a clothes-line. The ground, rising from the edge of the water presented a natural amphitheater for the accommodation of the spectators. Many a prize-fight had occurred at this spot, in most of which the whites had taken a prominent part, being interested spectators and extravagant gamblers. But to-day no white people were on the ground. When Hitch Diamond emerged from the plum-thicket which had served for a dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and stalked through the crowd to the ring, a wild burst of greeting and applause went up from his waiting fellow townsmen, all of whom, except Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush, had backed him to the limit at any odds. Hitch bowed right and left, waved his giant arms at the people on the edge of the crowd, and listened with hungry ears to their pleas: “We’re bettin’ on you, Hitch; don’t make us lose our money!” “Knock him out, Hitchey! Den us’ll all be rich!” Hitch ducked through the ropes and walked to his corner, where he sat down upon a folding stool.