“Mus’ be close on to twelve o’clock,” he remarked casually. “Da’s ’bout de time dat switchin’ engine come up hyuh evvy night to pull freight off Morgan W’arf.... Lemme hurry up; an’ I kin see my way thoo de mud, clean home, w’ile dat light shinin’ ’cross de Green. ’Cause dat ole crawfish pon’ sho is a nasty place for mud an’ slush, aft’ a hard rain like we bin had tonight.... Ole switch engine, you sho struck it right for Gussie dis time....” He went on talking aloud; quickening his pace in order to get over the track before the engine reached him. Hurrying on, he looked again to see how far away the engine was.... He could make it across the track easy enough.... The engine wasn’t moving very fast.... A few steps more, and he would be over the switch before the engine reached the corner. The reflection from the head-light showed nearly half-way across the Green. He could see the water from the duck pond all over the road, clean up to the front gate of his house. He recognized the old house by the thin little piece of light he saw blinking through the leaves of the castor oil bushes growing by the window.... Aunt Fisky must be up yet.... She didn’t leave no candle burning when she went to bed.... She couldn’t be sick?... Maybe she was waiting to see if he had the quilt.... Poor ole soul,—she sho would be sorry to know he didn’t win the thing.... Seeing the engine still a few feet away, he started to run; impatient to get over the track before the long line of box cars blocked the way and kept him waiting in the mud and dark. He felt confident that he would be able to clear the track with perfect safety, just as he had done it many a night. But a sinister, opposing fate decreed that Gussie’s final hour had come. A secret snare lay in his path, half-buried in the hard, unyielding mud. There it lay hidden in the dark, sticking up like a waiting noose to catch his hurrying foot: a treacherous loop of rusty wire discarded from a bale of hay, dropped on the road by a passing wagon; or thrown there by some careless hand,—how long ago, no one could tell. A running jump, and he’d clear the track!... But tripping on the wire, he was thrown headlong across the rail; his unloved, unregarded body falling an instant victim to the murderous wheels of the heedless engine. The morning after the raffle at Carmelite’s house, the East Green was in a veritable fever of excitement. Such a number of things had happened, it seemed that all the neighbors of the Green were out-of-doors discussing the strange events. Some amused, others genuinely distressed; all amazed and amazingly voluble.