Skeeter leaned his chair against the tree, sat down, and placed the heels of his shoes in the front rungs of the chair, tipped his hat down over his eyes until the bridge of his nose was invisible, and sat motionless. Except the tiny column of smoke that curled up from his cigarette, there was scarcely a sign of life.
The two boys wandered around to the front of the saloon. Then a bright idea came to Little Bit:
“Marse Org, less git a match an’ burn de cracker offen dis ole whup.”
Little Bit led him into the saloon and conducted him to the little room in the rear. There, upon a table, they found a box of matches, and Org struck one and applied it to the cracker, while Little Bit held the whip.
The cracker easily caught fire and burned freely. When it was near to the rawhide end of the lash Little Bit gave the whip a quick jerk and the flaming cracker flew off the end. The boys laughed at the success of their plan, picked up a handful of twine strings which lay around the floor, and walked out.
Boylike, they never looked to see where the flaming cracker went. They didn’t care where it went. They didn’t want it. They went out the way they had come, and ran up the street and far away.
Skeeter was undisturbed until Dazzle Zenor passed and roused him.
“I’s fixin’ to make a good bunch of money,” Dazzle boasted.
“I’ll either make money or git in jail,” Skeeter said. “I’m got a detecative job.”
“My job is harder,” Dazzle smiled. “I pick pockets.”
“I bet you is flirtin’ wid a jail, too,” Skeeter asserted.
Suddenly she stopped and stared at the closed door in the rear of the saloon through which tiny spirals of smoke were issuing by way of the cracks.
“Fumigatin’ whut?” Skeeter asked, then ran to the door and threw it open.
The room was filled with smoke and a pile of old trash and newspapers in one corner was ablaze.
With a loud whoop, Skeeter and Dazzle ran through the smoke to the fire; from the door which entered into the barroom, Figger Bush came in with a bucket of water, yelling like a wild man. It was all over in a minute.
“Good-by, Skeeter!” Dazzle laughed. “Mebbe us’ll meet in jail.”
“Dat fire is a bad sign for me, Dazzle,” Skeeter sighed. “Troubles is gittin’ ready to happen to me.”