The horse looked at him with eyes that said nothing. “You won’t tell,” Johnny bantered. “Well, then, I’ll have to find out for myself. Come on, you two o’clock!” CHAPTER III THE FEASTERS SEE A HAUNT Pant did not return to the neighborhood of the circus grounds until darkness had fallen. Then it was only to go skulking along the beach, and to perch himself at last, owl-like, on a huge pile of sand which overlooked a particular stretch of the beach on which a huge fire of driftwood had been built. The fire had died down now to a great, glowing bed of coals. About the fire eight negroes were seated. “Razor-backs from the circus,” was Pant’s mental comment. “Something doing!” So filled with their own thoughts were the minds of the colored gentlemen that they had failed to note Pant’s arrival. Seated there in the darkness, motionless as an owl watching for the move of a mouse, his mask-like face expressionless, his slim, tapering fingers still, Pant appeared but a part of the dull drab scenery. “Hey, Brother Mose; time to carb de turkey-buzzard,” chuckled one of the darkies. “Brother Mose” turned half about, stretched out a fat hand and drew toward him a thin object wrapped in a newspaper. “Sambo,” he commanded, “leave me have dat cleavah!” Sambo handed over a butcher’s cleaver. The next instant the package was unwrapped, revealing a clean, white strip of meat, which had at one time been half the broad back of a porker. “Po’k chops!” murmured Mose. “Um! Um! Um!” came in a chorus. “Ya-as, sir. Now you-all jes’ stir up dem coals, an’ put dem sweet ’taters roastin’, while I does the slicin’ an’ de cleavin’.” Mose drew a butcher knife from his hip pocket. From a second bulging package on the beach, two of his comrades drew shining yellow tubers, while others stirred up the coals, and raked some out to a circular hole in the sand, which had previously been lined with ashes. Having tossed the coals in, they covered them lightly with ashes, at the same time calling: “Le’s hab dem ’taters!”
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