“Bimeby, madam,” resumed Roux, still addressing Emily, who sat looking at him with a flush of fiery indignation on her beautiful countenance, “I sloshed about, an’ the rope broke an’ let me down. I jus’ got out of that gin-house mighty quick, I tell you. Then I went down a piece to the hollow stump, where I’d hid the kian an’ a carvin’ knife, which I’d took one day from the kitchen. I got the kian an’ the knife, an’ put off hot foot for the north. Jus’ about sunrise, I heerd Dan Belcher’s hounds a-comin’ after me—two of ’em, yellin’ awful. I was proper skeered, madam, but I jus’ made a hole in the paper of kian, an’ run on, holdin’ the paper low down on the trail, so’s to let the kian drop out along, you know. Then when the kian was all gone, I got skeered, an’ I run on a piece, an’ shinned up a live-oak ’way into the thick of the leaves, an’ lay still. ’Fore long, I see the hounds comin’, an’ Dan Belcher an’ old Toler an’ Master Lafitte ridin’ after ’em. I got so skeered I like to dropped, but I lay hush, an’ right soon I saw the dogs run up, an’ poke their noses into the kian. Ki-yi-yah,” cachinnated Roux, overcome with the reminiscence, “you ought to have seen them dogs, madam. They jus’ acted as if they’d got religion! They flopped down an’ rolled over, yellin’ like mad, an’ rubbin’ their noses into the kian, an’ rollin’ agin, an’ hollerin’—hi! Never saw nothin’ out of camp-meetin’ act like them cre’turs. ’Fore long up come old Master an’ Dan Belcher an’ Toler, an’ looked at them dogs. I couldn’t hear a word they was sayin’, but I spekilated they was wonderin’ what had got into them dogs. Then Dan Belcher, he got down, an’ dragged off the hounds, an’ poked his nose into the kian. Hi! I reckon he got a smell, for he jumped up rubbin’ his nose, an’ stampin’ round awful.” Tugmutton, with the baby in his arms, burst into a screech of eldritch laughter, kicking up his feet from the low chair in which he sat, in phrenetic glee. All the others were silent, with faces intent on Roux. “Bimeby,” resumed the negro, “Dan Belcher he laid a hold of the dogs, an’ dragged them on a piece to find the trail with no kian on it. ’Twasn’t no use, for the dogs didn’t do nothin’ but snuff an’ yell an’ roll over. So’n about a half an hour, I reckon, they all went back, an’ I lay hush in the tree all day. Along towards evenin’ I got down, an’ run on agin. Bimeby I come plump on a man. ‘Where’s your pass?’ says he. ‘Here it is,’ says I, givin’ him a dig with the carvin’-knife. ‘Ugh,’ says he”— Everybody burst into a peal of laughter at the nonchalant, matter-of-fact simplicity with which Roux said this. Roux himself was rather amazed at the interruption, and stood, faintly smiling, with his whitewash-stained dark hand fumbling over his mouth, and his eyes uneasily roving over the laughing company.