The crowd gasped and uttered awe-stricken exclamations. Slowly Hitch advanced until he was well within reach of Conko Mukes’s protruding jaw. Then the sleepy lion suddenly thrust out a raging paw--there was the sharp snap of leather against human bone--an electric globe burst in Conko Mukes’s puny brain, and darkness enveloped the great originator of the pugilistic hoodoo-eyes! “I knows whut I done to dat big stiff!” Hitch grinned as he turned to walk back to his corner. Then a loud shout arose from the crowd and Hitch whirled and looked behind him. In spite of that terrific blow, Conko Mukes was on his feet again! The ropes around the rudely constructed ring had been under such a strain during the fight that when Conko Mukes reeled back against them they broke, and the inert body of the pugilist rolled into the ice-cold waters of Dorfoche Lake! At the moment, when Conko rose and stood waist-deep in the water of the little lake, he heard a woman’s voice, screaming like a swamp panther: “Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!” Conko looked up and beheld a hundred white men following close behind Goldie Diamond, as the girl ran toward them like a yellow streak, proclaiming with a Gabriel-trumpet tone: “Run, niggers, run! De white folks is comin’!” For one tense moment the crowd of blacks huddled together like quails bunch before a windstorm. Then, with one voice, a squall of fear split the sky, and the mob whirled like Dervishes and bumped into each other like blind bugs in a tin can. After that, with one accord, they went into the woods, leaping stumps and logs, tearing their garments to shreds upon the snags and vines, falling and rising again, miring themselves in the muck of the swamp, howling like a wolf-pack, their voices echoing through the forest with terrifying reverberations. Conko Mukes dived back into the lake, swam across it, and hid in the deep marsh-grass on the other side until after dark. * * * * * The next morning, Sheriff John Flournoy met Skeeter Butts and inquired: “Skeeter, what made you niggers run off yesterday when we came out to see the fight?” “Dunno, Marse John,” Skeeter grinned. “You know how niggers is. We figgered mebbe you white folks didn’t favor prize-fights.” “That’s what I don’t understand,” Flournoy replied. “Goldie Diamond came running to town and told us the niggers were having a prize-fight, and when we went out to see it, she raised a whoop and scared all the niggers away.” “Yes, suh,” Skeeter grinned. “Dat’s whut she done.” “Why did she do it?” Flournoy persisted. “Well, suh, I s’pose Goldie thought Hitch wus gwine git knocked out. Anyways, I’s powerful glad it happened, Marse John. Ef dat hadn’t come to pass, Skeeter Butts would be bankbust by dis time in de mawnin’.” Flournoy turned away by no means satisfied, but confident that there was some nigger secret in the matter which the darkies would never reveal.