"'Most made the mistake of ma life," he chuckled, "stickin' to that
ol' train foheveh. 'T isn't the right way at, all foh Gideon to come
home."
The river was not far away. He could catch the dancing blue of it from
time to time in ragged vista, and for this beacon he steered directly.
His coat was heavy on his arm, his thin patent-leather ties pinched
and burned and demanded detours around swampy places, but he was
happy.
As he went along, his plan perfected itself. He would get into loose
shoes again, old ones, if money could buy them, and old clothes, too.
The bull-briers snatching at his tailored splendor suggested that.
He laughed when the Florida partridge, a small quail, whirred up from
under his feet; he paused to exchange affectionate mockery with red
squirrels; and once, even when he was brought up suddenly to a
familiar and ominous, dry reverberation, the small, crisp sound of the
rolling drums of death, he did not look about him for some instrument
of destruction, as at any other time he would have done, but instead
peered cautiously over the log before him, and spoke in tolerant
admonition:
"Now, Misteh Rattlesnake, yo' jes min' yo' own business.
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