“Ah sure should know ’bout that chicken!” grinned Uncle Zeke as he watched the boys open a tin can.
Clay sat back and laughed heartily at the puzzled expression on the negro’s face.
“If you’d only known about that chicken being there, you’d have found a place for it long before this, wouldn’t you. Uncle Zeke?” he asked.
“Ah sure would!” replied the old darkey. “Ah sure done gettin’ hungry right now! Yaller-legged chicken! Huh!”
“All right!” Clay suggested. “As soon as Alex gets the fish ready, we’ll all have breakfast. I’ve had one good feed this morning, but I can stand another.”
“Tell you what,” the old darkey continued with his eyes fixed ravenously on the frying fish. “Ah don’t go through no cut-off wid de sun up! Dat country’s full of pesky pirates.”
“Mother of Moses!” cried Alex. “Have we got to wait here until night? If we have, I’ll spend the time eating.”
“That might not be a bad idea!” Clay exclaimed. “Case and Jule may come back before long. If they really have been captured by the night-riders, they won’t be held very long.”
“We don’t know that,” Alex insisted. “The man we talked with up at the barges was probably a night-rider, and he talked fair enough, but if they suspect the boys of being spies, it will be a long time before they gain their liberty.”
“Anyway,” Clay suggested, “if we have to remain here until twilight, we can look about on the chance of finding the kids.”
“Ah’m advisin’ you boys not to do no lookin’ about in dis here country!” Uncle Zeke exclaimed. “Mighty ’spicious people, dem night-riders!”
“That’s exactly the idea, Alex!” Clay expressed himself. “The night-riders probably suspect that we are here as spies and that’s why they have taken the boys away. Now there’ll probably be something doing here before long, for the riders seem to be out in force.
“After they have accomplished the purpose of their gathering, they’ll probably disband, and there’ll be no more trouble with them until they get ready to burn down another tobacco warehouse, or beat up some defenseless grower, whose only crime is to want to get rid of his product.”
While these events had been taking place at the landing, Case and Jule, very much to their surprise, had been released from surveillance at the farm house and advised to make their way back to the river.