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fingered the money in his pocket. He made a move to sit on the edge of his bed, but instead, went to his window and peered out into the gathering darkness. The premonition of coming evil, which arises out of unsettled nerves, oppressed him. Zed Parrum had promised to call by the hotel for him, and now as Abner looked out of the window he saw Zed’s angular form coming through the gloom. Zed whistled up, and Abner, immensely relieved that a decision had been made for him, put on his hat and hurried downstairs.
On his way down he almost collided with a girl coming up through the darkness. It seemed to Abner that this girl must know that he was going to a crap game. When he passed her he stood stock still, listening to her retreating footsteps down the long hall until his reason told him that she did not know his purposes.
Abner joined Zed at the door, and without a word the two went out the gate and set off down the street in the darkness.
Once Abner had embarked on the expedition he was very glad of it. It accelerated the whole tempo of the evening. A sense of adventure, a possibility of danger quickened his pulse. Their road presently deserted the main street for alleys among the Negro shacks at the outskirts of the village. These cabins merged gradually into the woods themselves. The alley dwindled to a path. As the boys walked along it other stragglers began to appear in the gloom moving toward the crap grounds. At two or three hundred yards’ distance someone fired a pistol a number of times—a sudden hard hammering too rapid for Abner to count.
Some of the nearer stragglers whistled discreetly at the two youths and Zed answered them. Three men came up; one had a bottle. He passed it around with "Have a jolt." "Take a kick." "Bail her out." As each man drank he wiped the mouth of the bottle carefully on his shirt sleeve and returned it to the owner. There was a certain ritualism about it which impressed Abner as being urbane and cultured. These Irontown men certainly had a polish one didn’t find in the hills.