Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/268

 Ef he'd jes kep his mouf shet I'd had dem niggers plowin' in de cotton patch till yit."

Old Reliable continued to mumble and grumble, and glancing over his shoulder to the squatty brick quarters which an early explorer had erected, now repaired for the white men who were directing cotton-planting experiments. Colonel Spottiswoode had strolled leisurely into the house when Mr. Bim bolted out again and slammed the wire screen. Zack knew that the Bimbashi would be attired in his dinner jacket. Zack also knew that the impatient young Scotchman would stride up and down the porch, or take a restless turn to the river and back. For the last idle month McDonald had taken many a restless turn, done much striding, and much swearing at their worthless labor.

Zack eyed Mr. Bim striding back and forth, like some powerful locomotive without a track. "Huh! Mister Bim ain't feelin' good; he sho is pestered in his mind."

Bimbashi McDonald was more than pestered; he was almost ready to own himself beaten in the fight to raise cotton on Wadi Okar. White mechanics had built their seed-houses with military promptitude; commissary and administration quarters went up as swiftly as the tents of a well-disciplined army. They set their gins to running like clock-work, but there would be no cotton to