Orren was determined that Mustard should not see him. He lay down flat upon the stair-steps and crawled with the greatest caution toward the top. Just as the steamboat navigated the dangerous waters of Miss Gaitskill’s room and threw out a line on the dressing-table, the Indian peeped around the door-jamb! It is better to abandon the rhetorical and imaginative now; it is too easy to forget which is who, and get the Indian and the steamboat mixed. What Org saw as he peeped around the door was Mustard Prophet, his nervous black hand resting upon the dressing-table. Slowly Org raised himself to his feet and took a big breath and jumped. There was a loud whoop, which Org imagined was the equivalent to a blood-curdling yell! It curdled Mustard Prophet, all right! The negro was absolutely petrified! He stood like a statue carved of ebony, apparently nothing alive about him except the eyes, which got bigger and burned with fires of terror. Fright sometimes paralyzes temporarily; nothing moves, even the mind stands still. The victim helpless, disaster swoops down like an eagle upon its prey. Orren was disappointed. “Why didn’t you jump when I hollered?” he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone. “I’m playing Indian.” Orren was completely blind to the negro’s pitiful fright. It was fully a minute before Mustard could utter a word. The vital forces had ceased, and they started slowly as when a street-car grips the vital force of the cable and gets going. “Dat yell wus so disturbin’ dat I felt—er—sorter disturbed, Marse Org,” he sighed weakly, walking toward the hall and resting his hand upon the door-jamb. “I wus plum’ putrified wid bein’ so skeart!” “You don’t act like it,” Org snorted. “The next time I yell like that, you jump!” “I will, Marse Org, I shore will!” Mustard promised him fervently. “I got to hurry down to de kitchen now. Goo-good-by!” Org jerked open the drawer of the dressing-table, flirted a green-plush box which contained a rabbit-foot out of his way, picked up his own little purse and extracted twelve dollars. Slamming the drawer shut, he went racing back to the court-house to pay for his mule. XIII THE HIRELINGS When Org stopped in front of the court-house and placed the twelve dollars in the auctioneer’s sweating, dirt-begrimed palm, that functionary bellowed: “Twelve, I’m bid, once! Twelve, I’m bid, twice! Twelve, I’m bid, three times, and sold! Sold to this boy for twelve dollars! Go git your mule, son!” The auctioneer sought a convenient place to quench a consuming thirst. Old Jinx stood in the middle of the street, his eyes closed, his big, loose ears hanging down like a couple of banana-leaves that had broken and were flapping down around the stalk of the plant. Org caught hold of one big ear and spoke down into its fuzzy, dusty depth, exactly as a man speaks into the mouth-piece of a telephone: “Hello, hello! Wake up!”