“Mustard, how you know dat Mobile is hid dat money under dat rock? S’posen you go dar an’ don’t find it? Whut’ll happen den?” Mustard turned almost white. Then he answered: “Pap, ef I don’t git dat money dese here white men will hang up my Chris’mus socks widout takin’ me out of ’em!” IX BACK TO THE OLD FOLKS. Entering the stone ruins of the old plantation-house, Mustard walked unerringly to the large, flat rock which Mobile had lifted a few hours before and raised it from the ground. Pap Curtain clawed in the soft soil with his horny hands, then sprang to his feet with a yell. He held the heavy canvas bag tied with a rawhide string. Two hours later, Pap Curtain and Mustard Prophet, sons of sorrow, reach the pinnacle of happiness. Clothed in new garments, smoking cigars, rattling money in their pockets, they sat down in a banker’s five-thousand-dollar automobile, the owner at the steering-wheel, and started their journey back to Tickfall and the old folks at home. Mustard Prophet, responsive as mercury to the least chill in the atmosphere or the slightest increase in the warmth of fortune’s sunshine, began to expand: “Marse Tom, I shore hopes you’ll take better keer of de rest of yo’ dollars dan you did of dis bag of money. ’Twus a powerful hard day’s wuck fer me when I got it back for you!” No answer from Colonel Gaitskill. The miles sped by. Then Mustard asked, with as much curiosity as if he had been gone thirty years instead of less than three days: “Marse Tom, is Hopey livin’ yit?” “Yes.” “I bet dat nigger wife of mine makes ’miration over dese here fine clothes I’m got on.” Silence again, then a shout from both negroes: “Bless Gawd! Dar’s Tickfall.” When the car stopped in front of the bank, Gaitskill got out, carrying his money-bag, Pap and Mustard carrying their precious musical instruments. “Marse Tom,” Mustard inquired, “does I git my same job at de Nigger-Heel back agin?” “Certainly.” “I’s shore glad of dat, Marse Tom. Sheriff Ulloa offered me a job, but I ain’t gwine take it.” “What did the sheriff want you to do?” Gaitskill smiled. “He axed me to he’p him lay a pipe-line to de Milky Way so he could start a dairy.” Monarch of the Manacle. “Skeeter, whose pup wus dat you wus totin’ aroun’ on yo’ arm yistiddy?” Figger Bush asked as he sat down beside a table in the Hen-Scratch saloon. “I’d druther be dead dan be perceived packin’ a pup.” “Dat warn’t no common growl-an’-bark dawg,” Skeeter grinned, blushing until his saddle-colored face turned to a deep brownish crimson. “Dat wus one of dese here Spitz dawgs. It b’longs to Tella Tandy, dat new gal whut jes’ come to Tickfall. I’s keepin’ it fer her.” “How come she don’t keep it fer herse’f?” Figger inquired. “She’s stayin’ down at Mustard Prophet’s cabin, an’ she’s skeart Mustard’s fox-houn’s will eat her dawg up--dar he comes now!”