“I figgered dem wild hawgs would chase dat nigger off’n de top of de world,” Vinegar lamented as he glanced malevolently toward the stranger, who was sitting beside a stump, smoking a cigarette. “It didn’t pester him at all,” Skeeter sighed. “He looked like he enjoyed hisse’f real good. Reckon how come dat nigger didn’t git in de army, when he kin fight an’ shoot so good?” “De only way to skeer dat nigger is to take his guns away from him,” Shin remarked. “He feels powerful secure when he’s got a gun, an’ I feels—otherwise.” “Me, too,” Vinegar agreed. “An’ I bet he sleeps wid dem guns on his pusson!” Before the day was over, the marksman had been so loudly proclaimed by the white men for his skill that the negroes were feeling proud of this representative of their race and color. The negro women of Tickfall had prepared a great dinner at the hog camp. While the negroes were eating, the distinguished stranger suddenly left the side of Whiffle Bone and walked around the table to where Shin Bone was standing with Atts and Skeeter Butts. Shin saw him coming, and turned almost white. When the stranger thrust his hand into his pocket, Shin bleached some more; but the stranger extended toward Shin Bone not a gun, but a ten-dollar bill! “I owes you dis ten-dollar bill, Shinny,” he said, loud enough for everybody to hear. “I ain’t sold you nothin’,” Shin said, shaking his head and declining the proffered currency. “Naw, suh, but you loant me dis money a good many year ago, when you got married,” the stranger replied. “You bestowed dis loose change on me to buy some ice-cream an’ cake fer yo’ weddin’, an’ I rambled up-town an’ got in a little crap-game, an’ dem bones didn’t fall right fer me. I lost yo’ money, an’ I decided I better make myse’f absent.” “My Lawd!” Shin Bone exclaimed, reaching for the money. “Is you Whiffle’s long-lost brudder?” “Suttinly,” the gunman answered. “My name is Pewter Boone, an’ I jes’ got back from whar we fit de Kaiser.” “Fer Gawd’s sake, how come you didn’t tell me who you wus a whole heap sooner?” Shin exclaimed. “I did tell Whiffle,” Pewter replied; “but I wus ashamed to ’fess up to you onless I had de money to pay you back. Soldiers of dis here gover’mint don’t do like I done—dey is true to deir trust. I borrered de money from Skeeter an’ gib him some spy-glasses fer s’curity, an’ waited till I got me a job. Now I pays up an’ squares off wid de worl’.” Colonel Tom Gaitskill came up at this moment and announced: “Boys, Pewter Boone is the new superintendent of the hog camp. Isaiah is too old, and I hired Pewter to-day.” Shin Bone threw his arms around the new superintendent and expressed his delight in vociferous tones. Whiffle came over and joined them in the jubilation. The news quickly spread, and all the negroes in Tickfall welcomed the soldier.