Early the next morning Skeeter started out to hunt his horse. Having bought it and paid for it, he wanted it. His search was futile, and when he returned to Shin Bone’s restaurant for his noonday meal he was loud in his protestations of woe.
“De white man whut sold you dat hoss went to de pasture an’ stole him out an’ tuck him away,” Shin Bone told him. “Instid of huntin’ dat hoss, you oughter git de sheriff on de trail of dat white man.”
“But de fence wus broke down,” Skeeter protested stupidly. “Dat shows dat de hoss got out by hisself.”
“Ef I wus gwine steal a hoss, I’d break down de fence so de folks would think de hoss got out,” was the reply.
This was a new idea to Skeeter, who really had not given much thought to his predicament. He carried this dark suspicion for the rest of the day, still hunting his horse, but devoid of all hope of finding it.
“Dat white man rode dat hoss to town, sold him to me, an’ rode him out of town,” he sighed pitiably. “Yet dat feller looked to me like a tollable nice man. He stressified dat he warn’t honest, but he specified dat he was a puffeck gentlemun. I ain’t never gwine he’p a white man agin!”
He thought of the forty dollars he had borrowed from the white folks and had to pay back. The profits from his little business were extremely small and growing less. The repayment of the borrowed money meant close economy for a long time.
“I feels powerful sorry fer myself,” he wailed.
Wronged, abused, depressed, and hopeless, he returned to the Hen-Scratch saloon. When he entered he gasped for breath.
Dick Nuhat was sitting at one of the little tables, in an attitude of deep and solemn meditation, as motionless as a stone dog.
Skeeter sat down at the same table and opened his mouth to deliver his mind of all its burden of trouble; but the white man put such a successful cloture on the colored man’s oratory that Skeeter could not speak a word for a long time.
Nuhat thrust both hands into his pockets and brought them out full of silver and currency. He did not speak a word of greeting. He merely laid the money on the top of the table and watched Skeeter’s popping eyes.
“You ought to have been at the races, Skeeter,” Nuhat said at last. “We mopped up!”