“Now, Boomerang, yo’ might jest as well start now as later,” Tom heard a voice saying—­a voice he recognized well.  “Yo’ hab got t’ do dis yeah wuk, an’ dere ain’t no gittin’ out ob it.  Dis yeah wood am got to be sawed, an’ yo’ hab got to saw it.  But it am jest laik yo’ to go back on yo’ ole friend Eradicate in dis yeah fashion.  I neber could tell what yo’ were gwine t’ do next, an’ I cain’t now.  G’lang, now, won’t yo’?  Let’s git dis yeah sawmill started.”

Tom shut off the power and leaped from his wheel.  From the woods at his left came the protesting “hee-haw” of a mule.

“Boomerang and Eradicate Sampson!” exclaimed the young inventor.  “What can they be doing here?”

He leaned his motor-cycle against the fence and advanced toward where he had heard the voice of the colored man.  In a little clearing he saw him.  Eradicate was presiding over a portable sawmill, worked by a treadmill, on the incline of which was the mule, its ears laid back, and an unmistakable expression of anger on its face.

“Why, Rad, what are you doing?” cried Tom.

“Good land o’ massy!  Ef it ain’t young Mistah Swift!” cried the darky.  “Howdy, Mistah Swift!  Howdy!  I’m jest tryin’ t’ saw some wood, t’ make a livin’, but Boomerang he doan’t seem t’ want t’ lib,” and with that Eradicate looked reproachfully at the animal.

“What seems to be the trouble, and how did you come to own this sawmill?” asked Tom.

“I’ll tell yo’, Mistah Swift, I’ll tell yo’,” spoke Eradicate.  “Sit right yeah on dis log, an’ I’ll explanation it to yo’.”

“The last time I saw you, you were preparing to go into the grass-cutting business,” went on Tom.

“Yais, sah!  Dat’s right.  So I was.  Yo’ has got a memory, yo’ suah has.  But it am dis yeah way.  Grass ain’t growin’ quick enough, an’ so I traded off dat lawn-moah an’ bought dis yeah mill.  But now it won’t go, an’ I suah am in trouble,” and once more Eradicate Sampson looked indignantly at Boomerang.

CHAPTER XXI.

ERADICATE GIVES A CLUE

“Tell me all about it,” urged Tom sympathetically, for he had a friendly feeling toward the aged darky.

“Well,” began Eradicate, “I suah thought I were gwine to make money cuttin’ grass, ‘specially after yo’ done fixed mah moah.  But ’peared laik nobody wanted any grass cut.  I trabeled all ober, an’ I couldn’t git no jobs.  Now me an’ Boomerang has to eat, no mattah ef he is contrary, so I had t’ look fo’ some new wuk.  I traded dat lawn-moah off fo’ a cross-cut saw, but dat was such hard wuk dat I gib it up.  Den I got a chance to buy dis yeah outfit cheap, an’ I bought it.”

Eradicate then went on to tell how he had purchased the portable sawmill from a man who had no further use for it, and how he had managed to transport it from a distant village to the spot where Tom had met him.  There he had secured permission to work a piece of woodland on shares, sawing up the smaller trees into cord wood.  He had started in well enough, cutting down considerable timber, for the colored man was a willing worker, but when he tried to start his mill he met with trouble.