Little Bit’s mother, in spite of the fact that she had fourteen others just like him in her cabin, aroused all the negro section of the town by her frantic wails. She announced in a voice like a calliope that she knew that her angel child had fallen into a well, had been eaten by an alligator, had been bitten by a snake, had been drowned in a bayou, had been stolen and carried away by white folks, had been lost in the swamp—and she howled like a banshee over each one of these possibilities, and others of the same general nature as she thought of them. A great bellow of excitement went up from all the negroes, and a band of them hurried to the home of Captain Kerlerac to inquire the latest information about Little Bit. Their excitement was contagious, and the captain caught it, the white citizens of the town were inoculated, and in an incredibly short time the town was seething with an intense desire to organize a search-party and explore the woods for the lost boys. “We’ll wait until night, men,” Kerlerac said. “If the boys don’t come in by dark, we will go out on the Little Moccasin Road and build fires on the highway for ten miles. Wherever they may be in the swamp, they will see that trail of fire and come to it.” “That’s the way to do it,” several approving voices spoke. “Don’t bother Colonel Gaitskill with it,” Kerley suggested. “He’s getting too old to be running around at night and exposing himself. If the boys don’t come in by dark, I will ring the court-house bell. Meet me there.” It had not been very long since Kerlerac had been a boy himself. He knew every spot in that vicinity which was dear to boys, white and black. He listed each one in his mind and started on a lone search to each of these places. His automobile carried him first to all the swimming-holes, then to the old picnic-grounds, then to the old tabernacle, where the negro camp-meetings were held, to the pool where the colored members of the Shoofly church conducted their baptizings, to the old stables and sheds around the fair-grounds. Finally, he left his machine beside the road and walked across the field to the old cotton-shed beside the sand pit. The noise of shouting and laughter came to him before he arrived upon the scene. It was no trouble to locate the two boys as they splashed and paddled and fought with water and dived to the bottom to rise with a handful of sand to throw at each other. Time had ceased to move for those two youngsters. Sunrise and sunset were just the same to them. A score of apple-cores strewn along the sandy shore indicated that they had lunched well and were not hungry. “Hey, you!” Kerley called. The two boys looked up with surprise. “Come out of that water!” Kerley commanded. “Don’t you know it is nearly night?” The astonishment on their faces when informed of the passage of time indicated that they had been completely engrossed with their amusement.