into the wayside ditch to be sucked up by an unappreciative if porous
soil. The truck itself had been confiscated. Its driver barely had
escaped, to return homeward afoot across country bearing dire tidings to
his employer, who was reported, upon hearing the lamentable news,
literally to have scrambled the air with disconsolate flappings of his
hands, meanwhile uttering shrill cries of grief.

Moreover, as though to top this stroke of ill luck, further activities
in the direction of his most profitable market practically had been
brought to a standstill by reason of enhanced vigilance on the part of
the Tennessee authorities along the main highroads running north and
south. Between supply and demand, or perhaps one should say between
purveyor and consumer, the boundary mark dividing the sister
commonwealths stretched its dead line like a narrow river of despair. It
was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the sorely pestered Mr. Rosen
should be at this time a prey to care so carking as to border on
forthright melancholia. Never a particularly cheerful person, at Red
Hoss' soft knock upon his outer door he raised a countenance completely
clothed in moroseness where not clothed in whiskers and grunted
briefly--a sound which might or might not be taken as an invitation to
enter. Nor was his greeting, following upon the caller's soft-footed
entrance, calculated to promote cordial intercourse.

"What you want, nigger?" he demanded, breaking in on Red Hoss' politely
phrased greeting. Then without waiting for a reply, "Well, whatever it
is, you don't get it. Get out!"

Nevertheless, Red Hoss came right on in. Carefully he closed the door
behind him, shutting himself in with Mr. Rosen and privacy and a
symposium of strong, rich smells.

"'Scuse me, Mist' Rosen," he said, "fur bre'kin' in on you lak dis, but
I got a little sumpin' to say to you in mos' strictes' confidence. Seems
lak to me I heard tell lately dat you'd had a little trouble wid some
white folkses down de line. Co'se dat ain't none o' my business. I jes'
mentioned it so's you'd understan' whut it is I wants to talk wid you
about."

He drew up an elbow length away from Mr. Rosen and sank his voice to an
intimate half whisper.

"Mist' Rosen, le's you an' me do a little s'posin'. Le's s'posen' you
has a bar'l of vinegar or molasses or sumpin' which you wants delivered
to a frien' in Memphis, Tennessee. Seems lak I has heared somewhars dat
you already is go