Skeeter had received a shock. Four friends, beholding him, noted that his face was bloodless, his yellow fingers trembled and were beyond his control, his knees shook and buckled under him as he walked, and his chin was aquiver. “Bad luck, niggers,” he whined through chattering teeth. “A band of robbers has busted into Marse Tom Gaitskill’s house, an’ dey is killin’ Dazzle Zenor.” The four men sitting at the table quivered with excitement mingled with fear. With that emotional race, any sort of excitement is expressed by noise, but fear calls for silence. For a brief time the silence was so great that the five could distinctly hear the ticking of Hitch Diamond’s big silver watch. Hitch Diamond, the big prize-fighter, sat in a rickety chair. As he meditated upon the possibilities of the case which Skeeter had stated, and his emotions increased, that chair produced an irritating squeak with every inhalation and expulsion of Hitch’s breath. All the noise produced in that room was caused by Hitch’s watch and his chair. The rest were like frightened quail that squat and try to merge with the scenery. It seemed to be a long, long time before anyone ventured to break that oppressive silence. Finally Hitch spoke bravely: “Go up an’ rescue Dazzle, Skeeter. I’ll be glad to stay behime an’ take keer of de saloon.” Four chairs moved uneasily, emitting a scraping sound. Figger Bush pulled a corncob pipe from his pocket, and his trembling hands caused the stem to drop from the cob and fall under the table. Figger stooped to pick it up, found that it was dark under the table, and straightened up without his pipe-stem. He could get that pipe-stem to-morrow. “Me, too,” Figger Bush quacked. “I’ll he’p Hitchie keep de saloon.” Mustard Prophet, the scientific agriculturist of the party, took a big red apple from his pocket and bit deeply into its juicy substance. He was trying to appear disinterested, but his favorite kind of apple was tasteless to him now. “Dar ain’t no use fer de rest of us to go,” Mustard muttered thickly, munching at his apple, and glancing at Pap Curtain. “Skeeter kin handle de case——” “You got to go wid me, Mustard,” Skeeter interrupted. “Dazzle tole me dat Hopey wus in de house, too—an’ de robbers is killin’ her.” The part of the apple Mustard held in his fingers slipped away and rolled across the saloon floor; the part he had in his mouth strangled in his quivering throat. “Dat’s too bad,” he announced in a tone of disinterested sympathy. “But dat serves Hopey right, an’ she deeserves all she gits. Me an’ my nigger wife don’t speak no more. I went dar to-night, an’ axed Hopey to gimme some hot biscuits an’ a few sirup, an’ she wouldn’t do it!”