The next morning Alek proceeded from his shanty under the complete but customary illusion that he was going to work. He trudged manfully along until he reached the vicinity of Si Bryant's place. Then, by stages, he relapsed into a slink. He was passing the garden-patch under full steam, when, at some distance ahead of him, he saw Si Bryant leaning casually on the garden fence. "Good-mornin', Alek." "Good-mawnin', Mist' Bryant," answered Alek, with a new deference. He was marching on, when he was halted by a word--"Alek!" He stopped. "Yes, seh." "I found a knife this mornin' in th' road," drawled Si, "an' I thought maybe it was yourn." Improved in mind by this divergence from the direct line of attack, Alek stepped up easily to look at the knife. "No, seh," he said, scanning it as it lay in Si's palm, while the cold steel-blue eyes of the white man looked down into his stomach, "'tain't no knife er mine." But he knew the knife. He knew it as if it had been his mother. And at the same moment a spark flashed through his head and made wise his understanding. He knew everything. "'Tain't much of er knife, Mist' Bryant," he said, deprecatingly. "'Tain't much of a knife, I know that," cried Si, in sudden heat, "but I found it this mornin' in my watermelon-patch--hear?" "Watahmellum-paitch?" yelled Alek, not astounded. "Yes, in my watermelon-patch," sneered Si, "an' I think you know something about it, too!" "Me?" cried Alek. "Me?" "Yes--you!" said Si, with icy ferocity. "Yes--you!" He had become convinced that Alek was not in any way guilty, but he was certain that the old man knew the owner of the knife, and so he pressed him at first on criminal lines. "Alek, you might as well own up now. You've been meddlin' with my watermelons!" "Me?" cried Alek again. "Yah's _ma_ knife. I done cah'e it foh yeahs." Bryant changed his ways. "Look here, Alek," he said, confidentially: "I know you and you know me, and there ain't no use in any more skirmishin'. _I_ know that _you_ know whose knife that is. Now whose is it?" This challenge was so formidable in character that Alek temporarily quailed and began to stammer. "Er--now--Mist' Bryant--you--you--frien' er mine--" "I know I'm a friend of yours, but," said Bryant, inexorably, "who owns this knife?" Alek gathered unto himself some remnants of dignity and spoke with reproach: "Mist' Bryant, dish yer knife ain' mine." "No," said Bryant, "it ain't. But you know who it belongs to, an' I want you to tell me--quick." "Well, Mist' Bryant," answered Alek, scratching his wool, "I won't say 's I _do_ know who b'longs ter dish yer knife, an' I won't say 's I _don't_." Bryant again laughed his Yankee laugh, but this time there was little humor in it. It was dangerous.