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"She don' know—jess some'er's. She's all tore up about hit. Ah jess carried huh huh dinnah."

"Is she sick?"

"No, suh."

"Look here, who the hell's goin' to make her get out?" demanded Abner furiously.

"De"—John glanced up and down the empty road and whispered—"de whitecaps."

Abner stared at him. "Whitecaps!"

The Negro nodded, white-eyed, and whispered, "Don' you tell Ah tole."

"What for?"

"Er—uh—um—" swallowed John, then blurted out, "You knows what fuh, Mastuh Abnah."

Came a silence, then, "Of all damned outrages!"

"Yes, suh—yes, suh," bobbed the chore boy rapidly, "white fo'ks sho is supuhstitious 'bout dat, Mastuh Abnuh."

"And besides that," raged on Abner, "they can't do it. Why, damn it, I'm the daddy of them whitecaps. I got 'em to hang Peck Bradley. They can't do nothin' to my own gal!"

"Th-they say they is gwi'n' do it, though," stammered John.

"But I tell you I started 'em!"

"Yes, suh, Mastuh Abnuh, but startin' 'em ain't stoppin' 'em. Ah started a pair o' mules once . . ."

Abner did not wait to hear the conclusion of the story. He strode off down the road, cursing, and determined to take a strong hand in the matter of the whitecaps. And this determined him positively to marry Nessie.

The black boy watched the hillman leg it down the road, then he turned and resumed his endless trot in the other direction, placing as many miles as possible between him and Irontown before nightfall.

The road entering Irontown from the direction of Lanesburg leads within two or three hundred yards of the crap-