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Go Down, Moses
lay down a while too, since from the way things looked Tomey’s Turl was fixing to give them a long hard race unless Mr Hubert’s dogs were a considerable better than they used to be.

Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck went into the house. After a while he got up too and went around to the back yard to wait for them. The first thing he saw was Tomey’s Turl’s head slipping along above the lane fence. But when he cut across the yard to turn him, Tomey’s Turl wasn’t even running. He was squatting behind a bush, watching the house, peering around the bush at the back door and the upstairs windows, not whispering exactly but not talking loud either: “Whut they doing now?”

“They’re taking a nap now,” he said. “But never mind that; they’re going to put the dogs on you when they get up.”

“Hah,” Tomey’s Turl said. “And nem you mind that neither. I got protection now. All I needs to do is to keep Old Buck from ketching me unto I gets the word.”
“What word?” he said. “Word from who? Is Mr Hubert going to buy you from Uncle Buck?”

“Huh,” Tomey’s Turl said again. “I got more protection than whut Mr Hubert got even.” He rose to his feet. “I gonter tell you something to remember: anytime you wants to git something done, from hoeing out a crop to getting married, just get the womenfolks to working at it. Then all you needs to do is set down and wait. You member that.”

Then Tomey’s Turl was gone. And after a while he went back to the house. But there wasn’t anything but the snoring coming out of the room where Uncle Buck and Mr Hubert were, and some more light-sounding snoring coming from upstairs. He went to the spring-house and sat with his feet in the water as Mr Hubert had been doing, because soon now it would be cool enough for a race.

And sure enough, after a while Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck came out on to the back gallery, with Miss Sophonsiba right behind them with the toddy tray only this time Uncle Buck drank his before Miss Sophonsiba had time to sweeten it, and Miss Sophonsiba told them to get back early, that all Uncle Buck knew of Warwick was just dogs and niggers and now that she had him, she wanted to show him her garden that Mr Hubert and nobody else had any sayso in. “Yessum,” Uncle Buck said. “I just want to catch my nigger. Then we got to get on back home.”

Four or five niggers brought up the three horses. They could already hear the dogs waiting still coupled in the lane, and they mounted and went on down the lane, toward the quarters, with Uncle Buck already out in front of even the dogs.

So he never did know just when and where they jumped Tomey’s Turl, whether he flushed out of one of the cabins or not. Uncle Buck was away out in front on Black John and they hadn’t even cast the dogs yet when Uncle Buck roared, “Gone away!

I godfrey, he broke cover then!” and Black John’s feet clapped four times like pistol shots while he was gathering to go out, then he and Uncle Buck vanished over the hill like they had run at the blank edge of the world itself. Mr Hubert was roaring too: “Gone away! Cast them!” and they all piled over the crest of the hill just in time to see Tomey’s Turl away out across the flat, almost to the woods, and the dogs streaking down the hill and out on to the flat.

They just tongued once and when they came boiling up around Tomey’s Turl it looked like they were trying to jump up and lick him in the face until even Tomey’s Turl slowed down and he and the dogs all went into the woods together, walking, like they were going home from a rabbit hunt.

And when they caught up with Uncle Buck in the woods, there was no Tomey’s Turl and no dogs either, nothing but old Jake about a half an hour later, hitched in a clump of bushes with Tomey’s Turl’s coat tied on him for a saddle and near a half bushel of Mr Hubert’s oats scattered around on the ground that old Jake never even had enough appetite left to nuzzle up and spit back out again. It wasn’t any race at all.

“We’ll get him tonight though,” Mr Hubert said. “We’ll bait for him. We’ll throw a picquet of niggers and dogs around Tennie’s house about midnight, and we’ll get him.”

“Tonight, hell,” Uncle Buck said. “Me and Cass and that nigger all three are going to be halfway home by dark. Aint one of your niggers got a fyce or something that will trail them hounds?”

“And fool around here in the woods for half the night too?” Mr Hubert said. “When I’ll bet you five hundred dollars that all you got to do to catch that nigger is to walk up to Tennie’s cabin after dark and call him?”

“Five hundred dollars?” Uncle Buck said. “Done! Because me and him neither one are going to be anywhere near Tennie’s house by dark. Five hundred dollars!” He and Mr Hubert glared at one another.
“Done!” Mr Hubert said.

So they waited while Mr Hubert sent one of the niggers back to the house on old Jake and in about a half an hour the nigger came back with a little bob-tailed black fyce and a new bottle of whisky. Then he rode up to Uncle Buck and held something out to him wrapped in a piece of paper. “What?” Uncle Buck said

“It’s for you,” the nigger said. Then Uncle Buck took it and unwrapped it. It was the piece of red ribbon that had been on Miss Sophonsiba’s neck and Uncle Buck sat there on Black John, holding the ribbon like it was a little water moccasin only he wasn’t going to let anybody see he was afraid of it, batting his eyes fast at the nigger. Then he stopped batting his eyes.
“What for?” he said.

“She just sont hit to you,” the nigger said. “She say to tell you ‘success.’”
“She said what?” Uncle Buck said.
“I dont know, sir,” the nigger said. “She just say ‘success.’”

“Oh,” Uncle Buck said. And the fyce found the hounds. They heard them first, from a considerable distance. It was just before sundown and they were not trailing, they were making the noise dogs make when they want to get out of something. They found what that was too.

It was a ten-foot-square cotton-house in a field about two miles from Mr Hubert’s house and all eleven of the dogs were inside it and the door wedged with a chunk of wood. They watched the dogs come boiling out when the nigger opened the door, Mr Hubert sitting his horse and looking at the back of Uncle Buck’s neck.

“Well, well,” Mr Hubert said. “That’s something, anyway. You can use them again now. They dont seem to have no more trouble with your nigger than he seems to have with them.”
“Not enough,” Uncle Buck said. “That means both of them. I’ll stick to the fyce.”

“All right,” Mr Hubert said. Then he said, “Hell, ‘Filus, come on. Let’s go eat supper. I tell you, all you got to do to catch that nigger is — —”
“Five hundred dollars,” Uncle Buck said.

“What?” Mr Hubert said. He and Uncle Buck looked at each other. They were not glaring now. They were not joking each other either. They sat there in the beginning of twilight, looking at each other, just blinking a little. “What five hundred dollars?” Mr Hubert said. “That you wont catch that nigger in Tennie’s cabin at midnight tonight?”

“That me or that nigger neither aint going to be near nobody’s house but mine at midnight tonight.” Now they did glare at each other.

“Five hundred dollars,” Mr Hubert said. “Done.”
“Done,” Uncle Buck said.
“Done,” Mr. Hubert said.
“Done,” Uncle Buck said.

So Mr Hubert took the dogs and some of the niggers and went back to the house. Then he and Uncle Buck and the nigger with the fyce went on, the nigger leading old Jake with one hand and holding the fyce’s leash (it was a piece of gnawed ploughline) with the other.

Now Uncle Buck let the fyce smell Tomey’s Turl’s coat; it was like for the first time now the fyce found out what they were after and they would have let him off the leash and kept up with him on the horses, only about that time the nigger boy began blowing the fox-horn for supper at the house and they didn’t dare risk it.

Then it was full dark. And then — he didn’t know how much later nor where they were, how far from the house, except that it was a good piece and it had been dark for a good while and they were still going on, with Uncle Buck leaning down from time to time to let the fyce have another smell of Tomey’s Turl’s coat while Uncle Buck took another drink from the whisky bottle — they found that Tomey’s Turl had doubled and was making a long swing back toward the house.

“I godfrey, we’ve got him,” Uncle Buck said. “He’s going to earth. We’ll cut back to the house and head him before he can den.” So they left the nigger to cast the fyce and follow him on old Jake, and he and Uncle Buck rode for Mr Hubert’s, stopping on the

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lay down a while too, since from the way things looked Tomey’s Turl was fixing to give them a long hard race unless Mr Hubert’s dogs were a considerable better