Unnamed Negro Inmates 1

In the "common room" beside the cell holding Cotton in "The Hound" are the men the narrative calls the "minor prisoners": "a group of negroes from the chain-gang that worked the streets" who have been jailed for vagrancy, selling whiskey and shooting craps (163). One of them is at the window, "yelling down to someone" outside the jail (163), and one talks to Cotton, telling him to "Hush up, white man," when he starts going into detail about Houston's corpse (164).