“Naw, suh, white folks,” Pap protested earnestly, his intense fright making him stammer. “Marse Tom done run me outen Tickfall dis very mawnin’. He tole me ef I didn’t leave town he would bust my haid open. You done cotch de wrong coon!” “Git off!” the deputy commanded shortly, waving his stick toward the door. The train went on and left Pap Curtain at the station in the care of the constable. “You is shore made a miscue dis time, Mr. Sheriff,” Pap declared. “Marse Tom is always b’lieved in me an’ trusted me--Gawd bless his heart! You cain’t make Marse Tom hear nothin’ bad ’bout me--naw, suh, you couldn’t bawl it inter his year wid one of dese here Gabriel trumpets. I’s a good nigger--a powerful good nigger!” The grinning constable reached out with the end of his stick and struck it sharply against one of Pap’s bulging pockets. There was a pleasant clink of much silver in response. “Colonel Gaitskill telephoned that your pockets were full of money,” the constable told him. “I’ll let you pack it until we git back to Tickfall--then you can tell your Marse Tom where you happened to get it all.” Pap Curtain’s legs suddenly grew weak, and he sank down upon a depot truck and became silent. He set himself to light a Perique stogy--one of the two which he had bought from Skeeter Butts for five cents--bought with Figger Bush’s money. He broke three or four matches before he got a light, and then repeatedly forgot to draw upon his cigar. It went out again and again, and he always had trouble in relighting it. His hands trembled more and more with each successive attempt. “Lawd!” he sighed to himself. “Dey shore got me now!” The niggers had trusted him, and he had buncoed them all. The place where his foot had slipped was when he told them to go the bank to see Marse Tom. “White folks always gits nigger bizzness in a jam,” he thought tearfully. “Dem niggers wus suckers, but lawdymussy, I wus shore one big whopper of a fool!” The sweat stood in chill beads on his face. He knew what the inside of the penitentiary looked like--he had served a brief term in prison. He had tried to make friends with the “nigger-dogs”--bloodhounds--but it could not be done. He had tried to escape; that, also, was a failure. [Illustration: Drawn by E. W. Kemble. “Colonel Gaitskill telephoned me that your pockets were full of money.”] “Lawd!” he mourned. “Dey got me dis time!” The north-bound express whistled for the station. The agent ran out, flagged it, and the deputy helped Pap climb on. Pap had suddenly become an old and feeble man, broken, hopeless, forsaken, shamed, dreading above everything his return trip to Tickfall. The deputy led him to a seat in the smoking car and offered him a cigar. Pap gazed at him as if he did not understand, then took the cigar and looked at it as if he did not know what it was. All the light had gone out of his eyes, and his face looked like a scarred and wrinkled shell.