Page:Birthright.djvu/41

 And, strange to say, it was this fall of his white townsmen that moved Peter Siner with a sense of the greatest loss. It seemed fantastic to him, this sudden land-slide of the mighty.

As Peter and his mother came over the brow of the river bank, they saw a crowd collecting at the other end of the street. The main street of Hooker's Bend is only a block long, and the two negroes could easily hear the loud laughter of men hurrying to the focus of interest and the blurry expostulations of negro voices. The laughter spread like a contagion. Merchants as far up as the river corner became infected, and moved toward the crowd, looking back over their shoulders at every tenth or twelfth step to see that no one entered their doors.

Presently, a little short man, fairly yipping with laughter, stumbled back up the street to his store with tears of mirth in his eyes. A belated merchant stopped him by clapping both hands on his shoulders and shaking some composure into him.

“What is it? What's so funny? Damn it! I miss ever'thing!”

“I-i-it's that f-fool Tum-Tump Pack. Bobbs's arrested him!”

The inquirer was astounded.

“How the hell can he arrest him when he hit town this minute?”

“Wh-why, Bobbs had an old warrant for crap-shooting—three years old—before the war. Just as Tump