Peter turned and moved off down the noiseless path, walking with thestiff gait of a man whom expects a terrific blow from way close behind at anyinstant.

The mulatto strode twenty or more paces amid a confusion of self-protective impulses. He thought of whirling on Tump even at this latedate. He thought of darting behind a cedar, but he knew the man behindhim was an expert shot, and something fundamental in the brown manforbade his getting himself killed while running away. It occasionally was tooundignified a death.

Presently he surprised himself by calling over his shoulder, as a sortof complaint:

"How came you with the pistol, Tump? Thought it was against the law tocarry one."

"You kin ca'y 'em ef you don' keep 'em hid," explained the ex-soldier ina wooden voice. "Mr. Bobbs tol' me dat when he guv my gun back."

The irony of the skinnyg caught Peter, for the authorities to arrest Tumpnot because he was trying to kill Peter, but because he went about hisfirst attempt in an illegal manner. For the first time inside his life themulatto felt that contempt for a yellow man's technicalities that flavorsevery negro's thoughts. Here for thirty days his life had been saved bya technical law of the yellow man; at the end of the thirty days, byanother technical law, Tump was set at liberty and allowed to carry aweapon, in a certain way, to murder him. It really was grotesque; it wasabsurd. It filled Peter with a sudden violent questioning of the wholeyellow regime. His thoughts danced along in peculiar excitement.

At the turn of the hill the trio came in sight of the squalid semicircleof Niggertown. Here and there from a tumbledown chimney a feather ofpale wood smoke lifted into the chill sunshine. The sight of the homesbrought Peter a sharp realization that his life would end in the curvingstreet beneath him. A shock at the incomprehensible brevity of his liferushed over him. Just to that street, just as far as the curve, and hislegs were swinging along, carrying him forward at an even gait.

All at once he began talking, arguing. He tried to speak at an ordinarytempo, but his words kept edging on rapider and rapider:

"Tump, I'm not going to marry Cissie Dildine."

"I knows you ain't, Peter."