“looky here, skeeter,” vinegar atts announced, when they got back to the hen-scratch saloon. “somepin is got to be did fer shin bone. us cain’t let dat stranger run off wid shin’s wife. it’s ag’in’ conscience an’ religion.”
“how we gwine chase him?” skeeter asked, glancing pityingly at shin’s gloomy face. “skeeter cain’t think up no scheme to apply to him. he don’t ’pear to be skeart to shoot it out wid nobody.”
“dar is somepin or yuther dat eve’y nigger in de worl’ is skeart of, fellers,” vinegar declared. “less find out whut dat coon’s pertickler skeer is, an’ put it on him.”
“how we gwine find out?” shin asked.
there was no answer to this inquiry, and the three sat silent for a long time, smoking their pipes in gloomy meditation. at last vinegar sprang to his feet with a yell.
“i got it!” he howled. “a nigger is skeart of anything dat he don’t know nothin’ about. dead folks, pest-houses, ha’nts, bein’ all by yo’ lonely in de dark, hospitals—niggers is skeart of all dem things, because us don’t know nothin’ about ’em. you cain’t ax none of dem things a decent question an’ git a respeckful respondence.”
“whut is dat stranger nigger igernunt about?” shin asked, his eyes gleaming with hope.
“pigs!” vinegar howled. “is you niggers done fergot dat marse tom pulls off his big pig drive to-morrer?”
“dat don’t he’p us none,” skeeter said disdainfully.
“it do!” vinegar declared. “us’ll git marse tom to put dat exput-shootin’ nigger at de shootin’-post, an’ when he sees dem wild pigs swoopin’ down on him, he’ll jes’ nachelly sprout a couple o’ feathers an’ fly away from dar. dem hawgs will run him plumb to de gulf of mexico.”
“i gitcher!” skeeter exclaimed. “yo’ mind is suttinly popped off a noble idear. less go see marse tom.”
the most interesting event of the year in tickfall is the wild-hog hunt. gaitskill owned the little moccasin swamp, and he had let hundreds of hogs run wild in that jungle and shift for themselves. they lived on the mast and traversed the forest in bands of a hundred or more. they never fattened, being of the razorback variety; but they furnished plenty of cheap pork every year for the hundreds of negroes employed on the gaitskill plantations.
the weather was cool, and the time had come for the fall drive. there had been no rain for months, the swamp was dry underfoot, and a great picnic crowd assembled from all over the parish.
hundreds of men and hundreds of dogs spread out across the swamp, fan-shape, making every sort of a noise that would drive the hogs before them to a point near the gaitskill hog camp. here little moccasin lake upon one side and alligator lake upon the other were divided by a narrow ridge of land, where the slaughter of the animals would take place.
in the slaughter of the hogs care was exercised not to kill the big fighting males. they were the leaders of the herd, and when they led in a fight for the protection of the females or the young, everything cleared out of their path as before the onrush of an express train. the females were also protected. the young male hogs were slain, their flesh being tender and easily made into hams, bacon, and salt shoulders for food on the plantation.
this is one of the most dangerous games ever played in the little moccasin swamp. some of the big male hogs are six feet long and four feet high. they travel with the speed of a race-horse, and have the fighting instincts of a tiger. from their lower jaws great, ugly tusks protrude. they can run at full speed past a horse, and by an upward thrust of that lower jaw can split the flesh of the animal’s leg as if cut by a razor, or disembowel him completely.
a man in the midst of a fighting herd is helpless. when he hears an old sow pop her jaws, or sees her coming through the underbrush with a swinish roar, he will climb a prickly ash-tree or jump into a vat of tar to escape.
as the herd on this day was hedged in between the lakes and driven forward, the men heard before them, at the point where the slaughter was to be, the crack, crack, of a rifle. when at last the entire crowd had converged at the shooting-post, they found a strange negro standing with dozens of dead hogs around him. a dozen rifles were resting upon the top of a stump by his side; and as the young pigs rushed past him he raised a gun with a careless gesture, fired with seeming indifference but with absolute accuracy, and at each shot a young hog rolled over with a broken neck.
the men watched this exhibition of sharpshooting with great astonishment. the marksman never seemed to take aim, and yet never missed. just as a man can reach up and put his finger on his nose, so this man could put a bullet through the neck of a running hog and think nothing of it.
in a little while nearly two hundred hogs were waiting for the knife of the butcher. everybody lent a hand in the job of dressing them and loading them into wagons for their trip back to town.
vinegar atts, skeeter butts, and shin bone worked together. they spent a great deal of their time in low-toned conversation.
“i figgered dem wild hawgs would chase dat nigger off’n de top of de world,” vinegar lamented as he glanced malevolently toward the stranger, who was sitting beside a stump, smoking a cigarette.
“it didn’t pester him at all,” skeeter sighed. “he looked like he enjoyed hisse’f real good. reckon how come dat nigger didn’t git in de army, when he kin fight an’ shoot so good?”
“de only way to skeer dat nigger is to take his guns away from him,” shin remarked. “he feels powerful secure when he’s got a gun, an’ i feels—otherwise.”
“me, too,” vinegar agreed. “an’ i bet he sleeps wid dem guns on his pusson!”
before the day was over, the marksman had been so loudly proclaimed by the white men for his skill that the negroes were feeling proud of this representative of their race and color.
the negro women of tickfall had prepared a great dinner at the hog camp. while the negroes were eating, the distinguished stranger suddenly left the side of whiffle bone and walked around the table to where shin bone was standing with atts and skeeter butts.
shin saw him coming, and turned almost white. when the stranger thrust his hand into his pocket, shin bleached some more; but the stranger extended toward shin bone not a gun, but a ten-dollar bill!
“i owes you dis ten-dollar bill, shinny,” he said, loud enough for everybody to hear.
“i ain’t sold you nothin’,” shin said, shaking his head and declining the proffered currency.
“naw, suh, but you loant me dis money a good many year ago, when you got married,” the stranger replied. “you bestowed dis loose change on me to buy some ice-cream an’ cake fer yo’ weddin’, an’ i rambled up-town an’ got in a little crap-game, an’ dem bones didn’t fall right fer me. i lost yo’ money, an’ i decided i better make myse’f absent.”
“my lawd!” shin bone exclaimed, reaching for the money. “is you whiffle’s long-lost brudder?”
“suttinly,” the gunman answered. “my name is pewter boone, an’ i jes’ got back from whar we fit de kaiser.”
“fer gawd’s sake, how come you didn’t tell me who you wus a whole heap sooner?” shin exclaimed.
“i did tell whiffle,” pewter replied; “but i wus ashamed to ’fess up to you onless i had de money to pay you back. soldiers of dis here gover’mint don’t do like i done—dey is true to deir trust. i borrered de money from skeeter an’ gib him some spy-glasses fer s’curity, an’ waited till i got me a job. now i pays up an’ squares off wid de worl’.”
colonel tom gaitskill came up at this moment and announced:
“boys, pewter boone is the new superintendent of the hog camp. isaiah is too old, and i hired pewter to-day.”
shin bone threw his arms around the new superintendent and expressed his delight in vociferous tones. whiffle came over and joined them in the jubilation. the news quickly spread, and all the negroes in tickfall welcomed the soldier.
“look here, brudder,” vinegar atts bellowed. “us niggers gib marse tom de recommend whut got you de job of killin’ dem hawgs. we knowed you could shoot ’em all right, but we didn’t expeck you would. we figgered when you perceived dem hawgs a comin’ through de brush, you’d skedaddle.”
“huh!” pewter grunted. “i don’t skeer so awful easy. all dem growlin’, gruntin’ hawgs reminded my mind of dem bush germuns. i jes’ nachelly craved to ’liminate ’em!”
