“Look here, boy,” the old man's blue-black eyes gleamed as he stared at Pete. “I know yo' mammy en daddy, en I like um. Dey good black folks er de ol' stripe, en always was friendly ter me, en I don't like ter see you in dis mess. I tell you, I'm er old man. I know how white men act in er case like dis--dey don't have one bit er pity er reason. Dey will kill you sho. Dey'd er been here 'fo' dis, but dey gittin' together. Listen! Hear dem hawns en yellin'?--dat at Wilson's sto'. Dey will be here soon. I don't want ter stan' here en argue wid you. I 'ain't had nothin' ter do wid it, but dey would saddle some of it onto me ef dey found out I come here ter warn you. Hurry up, boy.” “I ain't gwine ter do it, Uncle Rich',” Pete declared, firmly, and with a grave face. “You are er old man, but you ain't givin' me good advice. Ef I run, dey would say I was guilty sho', en den, es you say, de dogs could track me down, anyway.” The boy's logic seemed unassailable. The piercing, beadlike eyes of the old man flickered. “Well,” he said, “I done all I could. I'm gwine move on. Even now, dey may know I come here at dis early time, en mix me up in it. Good-bye. I hope fer Mammy Lindy's sake dat dey will let you off--I do sho.” Left alone, Pete went out to the edge of the wood behind his cabin and gathered up some sticks, leaves, and pieces of bark that had fallen from the decaying boughs of the trees, and brought them into the cabin and deposited them on the broad stone hearth. Then he uncovered the coals he had the night before buried in the ashes, and made a fire for the preparation of his simple breakfast. He had a sharp sense of animal hunger, which was due to his long walk to and from the dance and the fact that he was bodily sound and vigorous. He took as much fresh-ground corn-meal as his hands would hold from a tow bag in a corner of the room and put it into a tin pan. To this he added a cup of water and a bit of salt, stirring it with his hand till it was well mixed. He then deftly formed it into a pone, and, wrapping it in a clean husk of corn, he deposited it in the hot ashes, covering it well with live coals. Then he made his coffee, being careful that the water in the pot did not rise as high as the point near the spout where the vessel leaked. Next he unwrapped a strip of “streak o' lean streak o' fat” bacon, and with his pocket-knife sliced some of it into a frying-pan already hot. These things accomplished, he had only to wait a few minutes for the heat to do its work, and he stepped back and stood in the doorway. Far across the meadow, now under the slanting rays of the sun, he saw old Uncle Richmond, bowlegged and short, waddling along through the dewy grass and weeds, his head bowed, his long arms swinging at his sides.