The ten men made a circle of the town, walking on the edge of the swamp, looking for tracks. They were experienced in reading signs, but they could not find a place where an animal had entered the jungle. Concluding that the horse had kept in some beaten path, they separated, each following a winding trail in the great hot-house of the morass, slimy with rusty-colored oily water, and all acrawl with repulsive form of insect and animal life.
At noon they all met at the broken place in the fence where the horse had escaped. The ground was soft, and yet they could find no hoof-tracks leading from the field to the highroad.
They did not know that Dick Nuhat had tied some cotton bagging under each hoof of his limpy horse before he led him through the gap.
About ten o’clock that night, Conko Mukes, entered the Hen-Scratch saloon.
“Skeeter, I come to git my money back,” he said. “I done decided not to buy no race-hoss.”
“You cain’t git yo’ money back,” Skeeter said. “De white man took all our dollars wid him, an’ now our hoss done eloped away.”
“I don’t know no white man,” Conko Mukes said belligerently. “I never seen no white man. I ain’t saw nobody but you, didn’t make no trade wid nobody but you, an’ I got a mighty shawt look at dat hoss whut I paid my good ten dollars fer. Now I’s lookin’ to you!”
“I got a mighty little look, too,” Skeeter said placatingly. “I ain’t got a real good recollection of whut dat hoss looked like. I ain’t real shore I’d know him in de road ef he didn’t limp none.”
“I ain’t buyin’ no absent hoss,” Conko said. “I want my money back!”
“But de white man is got our money,” Skeeter explained again. “You won’t git yo’ money onless you finds de white man; an’ he’ll be harder to find dan de hoss. You had a look at de hoss, but you never saw de white man whut sold it.”
“I ain’t seem’ nobody but you,” Conko Mukes remarked in a hard tone. “I gived you my money an’ you tuck it, an’ you is de mighty nigh white man whut is got to give it back!”
“I ain’t got no money!” Skeeter Butts wailed.
With this command he drew a large pistol from a holster under his left arm and laid it on the table with the business end pointing toward Skeeter Butts.
Skeeter turned almost white. Conko had the reputation of having killed several men, and Skeeter had no desire to be commemorated by the next notch carved on the butt of his gun.