The constable in the car scrutinized the black men, by the roadside in a very peculiar way.  As he came near, he leaned across Cissie and almost eclipsed the girl.  He eyed the trio with his perpetual menace of a grin on his broad red face.  His right hand, lying across Cissie’s lap, held a revolver.  When closest he shouted above the clangor of his engine: 

“Now, none o’ that, boys!  None o’ that!  You’ll prob’ly hit the gal if you shoot, an’ I’ll pick you off lak three black skunks.”

He brandished his revolver at them, but the gesture was barely seen, and instantly concealed by the cloud; of dust following the motor.  Next moment it enveloped the negroes and hid them even from one another.

It was only after Peter was lost in the dust-cloud that the mulatto really divined what was meant by Cissie’s strange appearance with the constable, her chalky face, her frightened brown eyes.  The significance of the scene grew in his mind.  He stood with eyes screwed to slits staring into the apricot-colored dust in the direction of the vanishing noise.

Presently Tump Pack’s form outlined itself in the yellow obscurity, groping toward Peter.  He still held his pistol, but it swung at his side.  He called Peter’s name in the strained voice of a man struggling not to cough: 

“Peter—­is Mr. Bobbs done—­’rested Cissie?”

Peter could hardly talk himself.

“Don’t know.  Looks like it.”

The two negroes stared at each other through the dust.

“Fuh Gawd’s sake!  Cissie ’rested!” Tump began to cough.  Then he wheezed: 

“Mine an’ yo’ little deal’s off, Peter.  You gotta he’p git her out.”  Here he fell into a violent fit of coughing, and started groping his way to the edge of the dust-cloud.

In the rush of the moment the swift change in Peter’s situation appeared only natural.  He followed Tump, so distressed by the dust and disturbed over Cissie that he hardly thought of his peculiar position.  The dust pinched the upper part of his throat, stung his nose.  Tears trickled from his eyes, and he pressed his finger against his upper lip, trying not to sneeze.  He was still struggling against the sneeze when Tump recovered his speech.

“Wh-whut you reckon she done, Peter?  She don’ shoot craps, nor boot-laig, nor—­” He fell to coughing.

Peter got out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

“Let’s go—­to the Dildine house,” he said.

The two moved hurriedly through the thinning cloud, and presently came to breathable air, where they could see the houses around them.

“I know she done somp’n; I know she done somp’n,” chanted Tump, with the melancholy cadence of his race.  He shook his dusty head.  “You ain’t never been in jail, is you, black man?”

Peter said he had not.

“Lawd! it ain’t no place fuh a woman,” declared Tump.  “You dunno nothin’ ’bout it, black man.  It sho ain’t no place fuh a woman.”