resort in crap games. He watched Tump stroke the face of his medal with
his fingers.

"My mother wrote me; about your getting it, Tump. I was glad to hear
it."

The brown man nodded, and stared down at the bit of gold on his barrel-
like chest.

"Yas-suh, dat 'uz guv to me fuh bravery. You know whut a skeery lil
nigger I wuz roun' Hooker's Ben'; well, de sahgeant tuk me an' he drill
ever' bit o' dat right out 'n me. He gimme a baynit an' learned me to
stob dummies wid it over at Camp Oglethorpe, ontil he felt lak I had de
heart to stob anything; 'n' 'en he sont me acrost. I had to git a new
pair breeches ever' three weeks, I growed so fas'." Here he broke out
into his big loose laugh again, and renewed the alcoholic scent around
Peter.

"And you made good?"

"Sho did, black man, an', 'fo' Gawd, I 'serve a medal ef any man ever
did. Dey gimme dish-heah fuh stobbin fo' white men wid a baynit. 'Fo'
Gawd, nigger, I never felt so quare in all my born days as when I wuz a-
jobbin' de livers o' dem white men lak de sahgeant tol' me to." Tump
shook his head, bewildered, and after a moment added, "Yas-suh, I never
wuz mo' surprised in all my life dan when I got dis medal fuh stobbin'
fo' white men."

Peter Siner looked through the Jim Crow window at the vast rotation of
the Kentucky landscape on which his forebears had toiled; presently he