As soon as Mustard Prophet was identified, half a dozen armed men from the dinner party patroled the lawn with guns and flash-lights, hunting for the negro whom Hopey had seen. The alligator, disturbed by the flash-light, which whipped across the grass, crawled under the fence into the horse-pasture, and was there discovered and killed by Sheriff Flournoy.
Skeeter Butts, who was hiding in the bushes just across the road, drew a big sigh of relief.
“Dem white mens is done killed a alligator whut’s got five foots an’ dey don’t know it,” he chuckled. “One foot is gone down de red lane of his gullet in a cute green box!”
Skeeter waited until the men returned to the house and then moved away.
“I knows whar dat rabbit-foot is,” he muttered. “But I ain’t gwine atter it. No Jonah in de whale fer me!”
Over in the negro settlement called Dirty-Six, Skeeter entered the Hen-Scratch saloon, saying nothing of the exciting scenes he had witnessed that night. But his mind dwelt upon them, as evidenced by a song which he sang again and again:
“Some folks do not believe Dat a whale could Jonah receive But dat don’t make my tale a-tall untrue. Dar are whales on eve’y side Wid deir mouths open wide An’ you better look out or one will swallow you!”
At the Nigger-Heel plantation Mustard Prophet, nursing a battered head, was curing an alligator skin which he had nailed upon a barn door, and was keeping careful guard over two green-plush boxes, each containing a rabbit-foot.
Mustard entered the junk-room full of Marse Tom’s curiosities, opened a drawer in a desk, and brought forth the two luck charms which had caused him so much trouble.
“It ’pears to me like dese here lef’ hind foots is lost dere power,” he muttered to himself.
He held up one box which looked rather messy, because Mustard had rescued it from an alligator’s stomach. He continued his soliloquy:
“Now you take de hist’ry of dis here foot: Cap’n Kerlerac gib dis’n to Miss Virginia Gaitskill fifteen years ago when she warn’t nothin’ but a little ole spindle-leg gal. An’ whut come to pass? Her paw an’ maw died in furin parts somewhar an’ she had to move back to Tickfall. Little Bit tole little Marse Org dat a rabbit-foot fotch luck, so he stole dis’n out of his sister’s room, swiped a pipe an’ smoked rabbit terbacker, an’ mighty nigh died. When Skeeter Butts tuck Org home an seen dis rabbit-foot, he thought it wus mine an’ I thought it wus mine because it looked jes’ like mine. So I sneaked up to Miss Virginia’s room to steal it back, an’ I had my hand on de very place whar it wus, when dat little ole Org boy skeart de gizzard outen me, playin’ Indian an’ whoopin’ behime my back.