Georgians : a novel

By
Will N. Harben
Author of " Abner Daniel " " The Substitute "
" Westerfelt " etc. etc.
New York and London Harper ,;r Brothers Publishers
1904

Copyright, 1904, by HARPBR & BRCT Published September, 1904.

THE GEORGIANS

THE GEORGIANS
JJBNER DANIEL hitched his bay mare i to the rustic horse-rack at the court1 house gate and "went into the yard.
Near the door of the red brick jail !' the clerk of the court, a middle-aged man, sat playing checkers with Jim Garden, a shoe maker, diminutive in size, but noted for his wit, scepticism in religious matters, and crude intelli gence. His shop was in the row of one-story brick buildings in the street that led from the temple of justice down to the long, brick freight depot, though he was seldom found there, as he spent half his time in the country. Abner was a farmer, tall, lank, thin-faced, with a tuft of gray beard on his chin and a constant twinkle of merriment in his eyes. He "wore a dingy black alpaca coat, for it was early summer - time, and he couldn't bear the weight of anything heavier, a pair of jean trousers supported by home-knitted suspenders, and stout brogan shoes, never firmly tied. He was chewing tobacco, and as he took one of the vacant cha^c^^ldrktilfee^^fe^ack against a tree

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he spat on the grass slowly and deliberately, his glance on the grimy, much-used checker-board.
" Thar, crown that un, durn yore lazy hide, 'fore you overlook it!" cried the shoemaker, exultingly, as he stroked his beardless chin with a blackened hand. " Ef I don't whack it to you this pop, old hoss, I'll eat my hat."
"You'd better start to chawin' then," said the clerk, tersely, as he winked knowingly at Daniel. A moment later he threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily, for he had made three " jumps " and swept most of the remaining men from the board.
" Try it ag'in," he said, with a broad grin. " The truth is, I'm jest sorter gittin' my hand in."
" No, my luck's agin me," replied Garden. He was eying Daniel with a lazy look of interest. " Uncle Ab," he said, "they tell me old Si Warren has sent fer you wants to talk to you about some'n. That's a compliment to a man in yore standin'. Shorely the skunk hain't goin' to turn State's evidence an' put yore neck in the loop instead o' his'n?"
"Hardly that, Jim, I reckon," Abner smiled agreeably. " I railly can't imagine what he wants. I used to know 'im over on the river. He owned a few acres o' land over thar before he started down hill so bad. I was sorry to hear he was condemned the Lord knows livin1 these days is tough enough without havin' to die on the scaffold at a signal from the sheriff without time to spit, swallow, or scratch the back o' yore neck."
"The old chap certainly is gittin' desperate," remarked the clerk. " It's my opinion he's at the end o' his row."
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"Rope," punned Garden; "but I'll grant you x^e's altered. At the trial he defied all creation an' the God that made it, cussed out court an' jury, witnesses an' hangman, an' said he only had one consolation, an' that was he'd meet 'em all in hell. But he's weak-kneed now; jail feed an' a hard bed in a steel cage in five foot o' the trap that's to drap a feller into eternity will take the brag out o' an' man-killer on earth."
"I reckon that's so," said Daniel, thoughtfully. " Did anybody believe his statement that he acted in self-defence?"
" Nobody but the fools that's been prayin' fer 'irn an' tryiii' to git his sentence commuted to life imprisonment," said Garden, warmly. " Ef law an' order is to lay in the hands o' them sort, I'll move out amongst the Injuns an' be done with it. I'm here to tell you fellers that Si Warren is a regular demon in human hide. Didn't the State show he'd made three attempts on human life before, while on a drunk? Do you think a scamp like that ought to be allowed to fill up to the neck with rot-gut once a week an' prowl round amongst law-abidin' citizens, seekin' an excuse to stab or shoot somebody?"
" I've always sorter admired the feller's dare-devil ways," said the clerk, as he put the checkers into a cardboard box and shook them into place. He laughed out impulsively, and continued: "I re member a few years back that he raised a regular bedlam at the bush-arbor meetin' below town. Bythe-way, he claimed afterwards that the meetin' folks was the cause o' his gittin' on that bender, anyway. Old Mrs. Tillman had carried the wine
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thar fer sacriment, an' when the time come to drink it somebody on the end o' the row o' applicants said it was too strong it had a sorter bead on it, havin' stood too long; so they tuck the jugs back to Mrs. Tillman's wagon, an.' sent fer some more wine. Old Warren was a - settin' nigh at hand an' seed the whole proceeding. He said afterwards that he'd gone thar with the best intentions an' up to that particular minute "was gittin' his share o' speritual benefit out o' the singin' an' carryin' on; but he said when he seed them thar jugs toted out into the bushes an' stuck in that wagon he backslid. He said he tried his level best to keep his mind on the preachin', but his mouth was waterin' at sech a rate that he felt more like he was bein' 'baptized than tryin' to git ready fer it. Besides, he said, as he set thar he got to arguin' the matter in his mind; he 'lowed that, ef the wine was a little too strong fer them sanctimonious folks, it mought be jest the thing fer a half - way convert like he was, so he up an' slunk out to Mrs. Tillman's wagon. He said the stuff was fur from the rale thing in strength, but thar \vas plenty of it, an' so he made a day of it on the sly, an' when he got' through he was about the most religious man in sight."
" I remember that day," said Abner Daniel, with a laugh; " it ended in a awful big row."
" I reckon it did," said Garden. " I was thar with my wife an' children. It mighty nigh busted up the meetin'. Si come in the arbor an' insisted on lyin' down on the straw between the benches. Some o' the members hustled 'im outside, but he bunged up half a dozen of 'em. They finally piled on 'im
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tell you couldn't see head nor tail of 'im an' kept 'im tLar tell the marshal come with three deputies. They drug 'im out as red as a beet an' half strangled an' started to tie 'im with a rope. He had sobered up considerable an' stood up as straight as a ram rod, an' offered to go like a gentleman ef they jest wouldn't tie 'im like a wild animal; but they wouldn't resk it, an' was gittin' the rope ready when Warren broke aloose an' run like a scared rabbit through the woods and across the fields. They tried to follow 'im, but they soon give it up an' come back to town the wust - sold lot you ever seed. But what you reckon?" Garden paused a moment and then finished: "When they got to town, the barkeeper at the hotel told 'em that Warren had been in to git a drink an' left word that he'd wait fer 'em at the jail. They come on up here, an' thar set the old devil on the steps o' that jail fannin' hisse'f "with his hat. 'I told you I'd come like a gentleman,' said he, 'an' I did. The next time I make you damn fools a proposition maybe you'll listen to.me!' He was put in jail an' stood trial fer disorderly conduct, an' worked out his fine on the rock-pile."
"A heap o' folks thinks he's not fully account able," remarked Abner Daniel, seriously. " I may be no judge, but it looks to me like he's stuck to whiskey so long that he hardly knows the benefit o ? correct conduct."
" I've heard that he used to beat his wife and daughter before they died," said Jim Garden. "They say he whipped his daughter, an' she was a pretty, bright girl, when she was past fifteen. A feller that will do that, drunk or sober, ort not to
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be pitied. That skunk is a scab on the tail o' hu manity a disgrace to this county. I don't care how soon they hang 'im."
Three or four countrymen left their white, canvascovered wagons at the gate, and, entering the yard, they passed into the court-house to give in their taxes, and nods and greetings were exchanged with the group under the trees. Jim Garden reached for the plug of tobacco Abner had taken from his pocket, and with the corner of it between his short, yellow teeth he twisted off a prodigious chew.
" What's interested me more'n anything else about the matter," he mumbled, "is the way the whole community is divided over it. A body ud think old Warren was a nugget o' pure gold. Out at Lickskillet the question o' hangin' 'im or not has split the church wide open. Some say it's "wrong to put 'im to death, an' the rest contend he ort to have a special law passed to have the job performed twice to make sure.
'' They had a knock-down and drag-out fight over it t'other day. Bill Daskam was standin' up fer law an' order, an' fer havin' speedy justice meted out, when Joe Elks, on t'other side, up an' axed 'im what the gospel had to say about that, an' Bill fired up an' told Elks he was a damn fool, an' that started a row. The two fit an' clawed hair an' eyeballs fer a good half-hour while the elect an' the non-elect clapped hands an' agged 'em on."
" That's human nature," Abner said, with a laugh; "it does a heap o' unlawful things to uphold the law. I see Barker comin' up the street; he went to Mr. Hammond to ax fer my permit to see the
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prisoner; it seems like a man's lawyer has full cuarge of 'im after he's condemned."
The young man approaching from the direction of the business portion of the town was the jailer. He smiled at Abner and nodded.
" Hammond said let you in as often as you "wished," was his announcement; "he 'lowed thar wasn't any danger o' you totin' files or deadly p'ison to prisoners. Are you ready to go in?"
"Just as soon do it now as later," Abner said, and he rose and moved on with the jailer.
At the outer door of the prison the two paused. "Say, Barker," said Abner, "are you goin' to let me right in whar Warren is?"
" No, not exactly, Uncle Ab," the jailer answered. "You'll have to talk to 'im through the bars."
" That's .nigh enough," smiled Daniel. " He's the one seekin' the interview. How's he been sence he was put in?"
"The best prisoner I ever had under my charge," answered Barker. " He hain't done nothin' in all the three months but set on his cot with his head down. He's fur from bein' a well man. Dr. Scott says he's got a whiskey heart ef you know what that is an' he has awful breathin'-spells. I sleep in the room right under 'im, an' away in the night when he's at his wust I kin hear 'im bumpin' agin the iron gratin' as he rocks back an' forth. His sort cayn't stand confinement."
As he spoke the jailer swung the big outer door open, but Daniel stood still, another question on his lips.
"What do you think about his claim that it was
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done in self-defence?" he asked. "Do you think that was a straight tale, Barker?"
"The jury didn't swallow it," said the jailer, and he smiled as he jangled the bunch of long, slender keys in his hands. " But, somehow, I believe it, Uncle Abner. He tells that part of it as straight as a die. But, you see, it didn't do 'im any good he couldn't git at his witness. Some say he jest claimed that Abe Wilson seed the shootin' becase he knowed Wilson had skipped out fer parts unknown
I don't know; but he don't seem to be lyin' about that part of it. He's a strange sort of a feller; he was as mean as hell to his wife when she was alive. Her neighbors say she was as good an' puore a woman as ever breathed, an' yet he always nagged her about bein' unfaithful. When a man gits rale bad, about the fust thing he does is to suspect the purest thing God ever made a good woman, an' the wuss he gits the less he believes in her."
"I've heard he was that way," said Daniel, "but I 'lowed it was jest when he was drinkin'."
'' He "was that way all the time, they tell me,'' answered Barker; "but in spite o' all that he's got some good p'ints. Folks say he don't owe a dollar in the world."
"How did he take the death sentence?" There was a wistful look in the old farmer's eyes as he glanced towards the patch of young corn waving in the sunshine behind the jail.
" Didn't seem to mind it any more'n ef the judge was sayin' good-morniri' to 'im," said Barker. "I had hold o' his arm when the solicitor read the ver dict. I didn't know what notion mought strike a

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feller as desperate as he'd been, but, sir, I'm here to tell you that old Si never quivered, nur so much as moved an eyelash."
"He's got nerve," said Abner, admiringly. "Yes, plenty of it," responded Barker, "but he's gittin' low-sperited now. My wife goes up to his cell, now an' then, an' tries to comfort 'im, but she says he jest mopes an' won't talk much about any thing. She hated 'im at fust, beca'se he has sech a pore opinion o' women in general, but she's over that now; she'd save his life ef she could. This is a funny thing about 'im: he's had so much Scripture read to 'im sence he was put in here that he's tuck up some strange notions o' right an' wrong. He says, fer instance, that, accorclin' to the Bible, it is jest as bad to want to kill a man as to do the deed, an' that while he railly did shoot Buford in self-defence, he's tried to kill several others, an' the law wouldn't make a big mistake in hangin' 'im in this instance." "That is peculiar," said Daniel, sympathetically; "he certainly has got nerve." " Nerve f" laughed the jailer "I wonder if you ever heard about Well, when he was sentenced to hang the fust of August I had orders to inspect the trap, oil the hinges, an' test the rope, an' see that everything was in good order. The "whole thing was right whar he could see me at work. So, to spare his feelin's, I hung a sheet over his cage so he couldn't see what I was about, an' when I was through I tuck the cloth down an' stopped to speak to 'im about some'n or other. He was settin' on his cot, with his head twixt his hands, an' didn't
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look up. I spoke ag'in, an' still he wouldn't notice me. Then I up an' axed 'im right out what was the matter. He hung his head awhile; then he got up an' come to me sorter half sulkin', half cryin'. He told me he didn't think I'd treated 'im right. He said he knowed well enough what I was doin' at the trap, an' that he thought it was mighty mean o' me to not let 'im see it, when it was so lonely an' dull up thar, with no thin' to pass time. Well, sir, it tuck my breath away; but I went back an' showed 'im all about the trap, an' he stood jest like he was listenin' to a sermon or a lecture, an' now an' then axed me a question about some p'int I'd overlooked. An' when I was done, all he said was that it was a long time tell the fust of August, an' he was much obliged to me fer my trouble. Blamed ef I could hardly eat my dinner that day. Law an' order means a lot, but somehow it looks like a pity to de liberately wring a pore illiterate man's neck like a chicken's when he's as sorry as this feller is. I'm a Christian, Uncle Abner I try to do right, an' sence I've had Warren to guard an' feed I've thought a sight about the way Jesus used to treat sinners. With 'im it "was always, ' Go thou an' sin no more.' Thar -was the thief on the cross, fer instance. He must 'a' been a scrubby sort of a citizen, from all accounts, an' yet the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, locked arms "with 'im an' went with 'im right into Paradise."
Abner nodded thoughtfully. A bond of sym pathy seemed to bind him to the speaker. He laid his hand on Barker's arm.
"Maybe science an' human progress will alter all 10

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this in the time to come," he said. "The brainy men o' the future may find a way to probe a man's hea^t an' measure his reformation an' regret, as they do gold to-day, an' when a man has reached a state o' genuine repentance he'll be give another chance. Maybe thar won't be so much guess-work then, nor so many mistakes in hangin' the wrong man. I don't know how much truth thar is in it thar's so many lies in print but I was readin' t'other day that they kin photograph thought in waves, like. Jest think o' seein' a man's remorse standin' out on the surface of a pane o' glass like frost on a clear mornin', with ten thousand little feathery prongs a-p'intin' back to every nook an' cranny of his past life."
Barker laughed sheepishly. "You are gettin' too deep fer me, Uncle Ab," he said. " But with all his evil ways Si Warren has got a streak o' good in 'im. He's a great tobacco-chawer, an' uses up his allow ance before he kin git more. One day he heard that nigger Pete Long, who was in fer shootin' craps Pete was beggin' fer more tobacco, an' old Warren give 'im his an' "went without I seed that myse'f."
They were now at the foot of the stairs leading to the cells of the prisoners overhead, and Barker paused. "Go right on up, Uncle Ab," he said. "Warren's cage is the fust on the left after you git to the top."

II
2BNER ascended the narrow, -winding stair to the corridor above. Directly
i in front of him, in open space, stood I an iron cage about six feet in width
by eight in length. At one end of the corridor was a window, a mere slit in the thick outer wall, through which the prisoner could look out upon the town park, a private school for young ladies, and one of the most pretentious churches in the place, a building that boasted of a tall, slated spire and a sweet-toned bell.
As Daniel drew near, the man on the low cot in the cage looked up with blearing eyes, and then he slowly came forward, and -with his long-nailed fin gers clutching the bars he peered through inquir ingly.
"Oh, it's you, neighbor," he grunted. "How do you come on?"
" Purty good, Warren, old man; how is it with you?" said Abner.
The prisoner thrust his slender paw through one of the iron squares and let it hang down from a limp wrist. The visitor took hold of the bloodless fingers for an instant and then let them slide out of his grasp. Warren was short, thin, and bowed ; his hair was gray and unkempt; his cheeks were

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sunken, and there were dark, despondent splotches under his eyes, which were all the more noticeable in their contrast to the prisoner's unnatural paleness.
" Oh, I reckon I'm as well as the law allows," re plied the man behind the bars.
Abner thrust the crook of his stout "walking-stick into one of the squares overhead and pulled down on it. "I reckon thar hain't no use sayin', Si," he be gan, awkwardly, " that I hate to see you in this plight, an' I want to say that ef thar's a thing a single thing that I kin "
" Don't want nobody's help nur nobody's pity, as I know of," the prisoner broke in. "I got my self in this fix., Daniel, with my eyes open, an' I don't want to saddle no part of it on to anybody else."
He coughed violently for a moment, his shaggy head bobbing up and down between his tense arms, and after the attack had spent itself the visitor heard him panting rapidly and making a low wheez ing sound. " I don't git my breath as free as I used to do," he presently went on, in a tone half apolo getic. " I was sayin' I didn't want a soul to be bothered with the consequences o' my deed, Ab ner Daniel, an' I'm here to tell you that I hain't sat isfied with all the hubbub folks is a-raisin' over me an' my crime."
"You say you hain't, Si?" Abner seemed at a loss as to how to converse with him on such a delicate topic as the one he plainly saw brewing.
"No, I hain't satisfied with all the disagreement an' hard feelin's of neighbor agin neighbor as to whether I am or am not put out o' the way as the law provides in sech cases. That's the toughest
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situation 1 ever tried, to stand up under, Daniel, an* I've had my share o' ups an' downs. Ef a feller's done wrong broke the law an' the like agin the advice an' example o' the best citizens o' his com munity, why, he ort to suffer hisse'f, an' not bring down rows an' strife amongst law-abidin' people some comin' to the front, by God, that he's cussed an' bemeaned all his life, as low money-grabbers, an' standin' up fer 'im in public places, an' strikin' blows, an' sendin' up prayers in meetin', an makin' speeches. My Lord, I can't stand that!"
Abner leaned more heavily on his stick; his mild eyes met the~ glance of the earnest speaker through one of the squares of the crossed bars.
"That's so," he said, "that's so; but me'n you can't make folks over, Si. They'll be jest what God intended 'em to be in spite o' all we kin do, an' an emergency like this sorter burns the dry leaves an' trash oft'n feelin's that's been hid a long time. I've reflected considerable over the sentiment for an' agin you, an' away down at the bottom o' both sides both sides, mind you I've found what looks to me like a diamond o' the fust water. Them that's contendin' so hot fer yore immediate '' Abner paused to select a word "yore immediate punishment, them folks believes the law is a good thing, an' at the same time they think o' the "
"The wife an' children o' the man I killed," the prisoner interpolated, his eyes fixed stoically on Abner's face.
"Yes, they are thinkin' o' them, Si; an' them that has wives an' children an' are groanin' under the re sponsibility of carin' fer 'em properly, them folks is
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a thinkin' how awful it would be ef some man under the influence o' liquor was to take a sudden, wild notier to--to "
"Yes, that's a fact," Warren admitted, gloomily, and then he was silent, looking past Daniel through the window.
"Then, Si, thar's another set o' folks that holds that the law hain't never been properly enforced in this particular county. In all its history it hain't had a legal execution. That set holds that, while thar's been a dozen murders in the county, all the guilty parties got off with light punishment through family influence, money, or political pull, an' they say they hain't willin' fer the the reformation to begin on a man without money, friends, or stability, an' on a man who never did any open harm when he was plumb at hisse'f. Them sort seem to be the bone an' sinew of the community. They fust want law an' order to be enforced fair an' square all round, 'fore they begin to enforce it on the helpless. An', Si, I reckon I'm 'with 'em. A body will naturally obey law more in a country whar law is respected. An' the slipshod methods o' runnin' our courts may be partly to blame fer yore trouble. I don't pre tend to know; anyways, amongst all the racket over it, a body runs agin a lot o' pity fer you Godlike an' Christlike pity fer the fallen."
Again the prisoner lowered his head between his arms. Abner could not see his face. The clock in the cupola on the court - house struck eleven. Presently Warren raised his head. A tinge of for eign color had come into his sallow face; his eyes were full, his lips twitching.
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"I hain't wuth it," he said, huskily; "I tell you, neighbor, I hain't wuth it. God never made as sorry a piece o' work as He did when He cut me out an' sewed me together. I tell you I hain't wuth it."
"Let other folks be the judge as to that," Abner replied. He took out his plug of tobacco, tore off a small piece suitable for his waistcoat pocket, and gave the remainder to Warren. "Try that," he said. "It's a new brand I run across t'other day the best I've struck in a month o' Sundays."
The prisoner looked his gratitude as he drew the plug of tobacco through one of the squares and fondled it in his hand. He coughed, and then, as if he were speaking as much to himself as Daniel, he said, "I hain't wuth it I hain't wuth it."
" Yes, you are," Abner returned, softly " yes, you are, Si. Settin' out thar on the grass jest now waitin' fer my permit to see you, I got to thinkin' that shorely ef ever'thing on earth hain't jest right, then the Almighty hain't behind it all, an' some'n makes me believe He's our only originator an' eternal guide. I say, while I was thinkin' on this line I axed myse'f ef Si Warren, after all he's been through, railly dies on the scaffold, what end will he serve, an' then I re membered the example the example to the risin' generation. Young men would steer clear of the pitfalls you stumbled in, after yore end, an' unbeknowenst to you, Si, you'll be a-doin' some good in the world some good, even through yore awful mis take. An' with that, Si, the thought come to me that in the world to come maybe you'll git as much peace an' content as anybody else jest think o' that, Si."

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" I've thought o' ever'thing till my head, swims," said Warren, despondently. " I'm tired tired fire^ ! I don't care a red cent when they put an end to me."
There was silence. Abner was looking out of the window into the yard below. A group of negroes stood at the public well, some with pails and pitch ers all were laughing and joking. Two white boys in knee-trousers were throwing and catching a base ball. Above the trees, in the clear blue sky, floated clouds as white as snow-drifts. They suggested to the old philosopher an idea of freedom vast and unbounded. He glanced back at the prisoner, and in a kindly, sympathetic voice he said: "Some o' yore best-wishers, Si, got sorter out o' patience with you fer the contrary, sullen way you acted at the trial. They claim you wouldn't take a bit o' inter est nur help yore counsel enough."
" Beca'se," Warren fired up "beca'se he's treated me like a baby or a plumb idiot through it all, an' that brings up the matter that I sent to ax you about. I want yore opinion. Looky' here, Abner Daniel, Mr. Hammond is the biggest, highest-paid criminal lawyer in the South, hain't he? I say, hain't he?"
"I've always heard he was." Abner's answer had a touch of wonder in it. "I know he had as good a chance to become governor as any man that ever lived. He was the only Democrat that could 'a' pulled the Populists his way. An' yet he refused the nomination beca'se it would interfere with his prac tice. Yes, he makes dead loads o' money, an' folks has wondered how on earth "
"That's it," broke in Warren "that's the point.

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He never was known to take a murder case until big cash money was put up fer the job in advance. I know that well enough, an' I've axed 'im about it till I'm tired. He won't utter a word on the sub ject, an' I know he's paid by somebody, fer one day when I was pressin' 'im hard to know about it, he got mad, an' told me to not mention the subject before anybody. Did you ever hear o' sech a thing? I told 'im right in his face, then and thar, that some body was puttin' up money fer me, an' he wouldn't deny it; he simply refused to talk about it, an' right thar I quit workin' with 'im that's why I didn't take more interest at trial. I wasn't goin' to be handled like a stick o' wood, ef I was on trial fer my life. That's a matter I've got a right to under stand."
" Hammond certainly did act peculiar about that," Daniel admitted. "Have you got any rich kin that that ud stay in the back an' try to help you out?"
"No, an' it hain't that," said Warren. "I hain't got no kin on earth that's wuth a cent; even ef I had I wouldn't get their money. I don't want nobody's help. If I deserve to die, I deserve it, an' I'll not shirk my punishment. I shot that feller to keep 'im from killin' me, but nobody wouldn't believe it. Hammond doubts it hisse'f. Buford was drawin' his pistol when I fired. Abe Wilson seed it; he was in six foot o' me."
"Abe wasn't put on the stand," said Abner, ten tatively.
" No, he skipped out of the country the minute he heard he wTas wanted. He's afeard o' courts. I

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don't know his private matters, but I have an idea he's committed some minor crime or other an' is afeprd to face a .judge an' jury. Some fellers is that away afeard o' their shadows; the very sight of a court-house or officer o' the law puts a cold chill on a guilty man, an' lawyers has sech a way o' axin' all sorts of fool questions that don't bear on a case. Abe come to me the day after I was put in; he told me he would clear me as clean as a whistle, an' the next week I heard he was gone out o' the country. I don't hold no grudge agin 'im. He's got a wife, an' has a right to look after his private affairs, even ef he does leave my neck in the loop."
"Has any effort been made to locate 'im?" Abner questioned.
" Has thar ?" Warren exclaimed, with a sneer. " I'll bet five thousand dollars has been paid to detectives fer that job alone. They've been sent all over the United States. I drapped on to that in Hammond's talk, an', Daniel" (the prisoner flushed angrily), "I want to know whar that money's comin' from. Hammond hain't got a speck o' interest in me. He's workin' fer somebody else, I tell you, an' I want to know who it is I want to know who's puttin' up money on this? By God! that's one thing I'm intitled to know, ef I ain the scum o' creation an' con demned to die like a dog. I've never had any chance in this life. I "was born with a love fer liquor, an' no strength to fight it. Then I married a wom an who "
" Stop!" Abner cried out, suddenly. " Don't go no furder, Si. I'm yore friend an' well-wisher, but you sha'n't slander a dead woman, ef she was yore wife.

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I hain't here to pick you to pieces, but all yore neigh bors knows you've always wrongly judged yore wife. She come of a pore but good family o' people. You never got over the opposition of her folks to your marriage to her, an' the lower you got in yore scale o' livin' the more you misjudged her. When vou driv' her from you by yore bad habits, an' made it so a woman o' her refinement couldn't live with you, you tried to pick flaws in her character. You've got to let up on that, Si Warren."
"Well, that's my business, Daniel," the prisoner growled. I don't want no quarrel with you. You've showed you're friendly, an' that's a lots to a man fixed like I am. Are you goin'?"
"Yes, I must move on." Abner was taking down his walking-stick. "I'm goin' up to Henry Vaughn's, an' it's gittin' late."
"You don't mean to tell me you've got low enough to associate "with that black radical, do you?" Warren snarled.
"Oh, I used to go to school with 4m," Abner smiled. " I hain't a-botherin' about his politics. Besides, I respect his wife; she's a good woman, an' all 'er folks fit on the right side. Old Henry's got his faults, an', like the rest of us, he's got some good p4nts."
" I hain't never seed nothin' good in him nur his layout," answered the prisoner. "Good-bye, neigh bor; drap in on me ag4n. This is a tough job I got before me."
" I know that, Si," said Abner, as he turned away, "but you must keep up yore sperits."
20

Ill
BNER went down into the court-yard. He passed the group now engaged on another game of checkers, and went out to the horse-rack and mounted his mare. With his long legs swinging like pendulums back and forth from the flanks of the animal, he rode down the longest and widest street in town, past churches and homes of the townspeople, till he arrived at one of the most pretentious of the ante-bellum houses. It had two stories and a half, was of brick, quite commodious, with a long front veranda and a cu pola. It stood well back from the street on a lawn, the grass of which had not been mown since the civil war. At the big, wrhite-posted gate of the carriagedrive Abner turned his mare over to a slouchy-looking colored boy and walked up the rutted drive towards the veranda, on which stood a young man and an elderly lady. As Daniel approached the young man came down the steps and advanced to meet him. " How are you, Uncle Ab?" he cried, as he ex tended his hand cordially. " I've just been talking to mother. Surprised to see me here, aren't you? Well, I admit I feel funny myself. I usually pick a time when father is away, but I slipped up on my
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calculations this time. I thought he had gone out to his mill, but he loomed up at the door while I was in the library talking to mother. He gave one of his deepest grunts, an' turned tail and fled down town like a feather in a high wind."
"So you 'n the old man are still pullin' agin one another?" said Abner, in a tone of regret, as he smiled and bowed to the old lady, who was resum ing her seat on the veranda. "I'm mighty sorry to hear it, Eric; a thing like that's bad in any com munity."
"We are wider apart than ever," returned the young man, who was about twenty-seven years of age, tall, well-formed, and decidedly well-attired, and as he continued his brown eyes flashed resentf^^lly. "Why, he actually made me quit living here at home. He said I was meddling in his personal affairs, and I reckon I was. He is my father, but being his son didn't make a Republican of me. If he had expected that he ought not to have brought me to life in a Georgia town of a mother whose sym pathies were with the South, and amongst uncles who fought for the Confederacy and scores of rela tives of both sexes who felt the same "way."
Abner Daniel smiled as he stroked his beard. "You do seem to be in a peculiar position," he remarked. " But what is this here report about yore daddy goin' to build a nigger college an' endow it with a lot o' money?" Eric Vaughn's face darkened. " Only an excuse to cut me out of inheriting what he's got," he said, bitterly. "A man by the name of Bowman, from somewhere up in Tennessee a rascal if there ever

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was one came along a month or so ago and put

up here at the house, and ever since he's been

prying into my affairs, picking me to pieces, and

persuading father that it would be better to leave

his money to negro education than to let me

squander it after he's gone."

"Huh!" Abner smiled, quizzically. "This here

Bowman does he expect to run the school hisse'f ?"

"Of course he's to run it; he's to be principal,

treasurer, and the whole business. The Vaughns

are not to be considered. I don't know even that

mother's future is to be provided for. It's a ras

cally scheme, Uncle Ab. That's what father and I

had our row about. I told him I wouldn't stay

under the same roof with a man of that caliber, and

the next day my room was locked an' father had

the key in his pocket. Mother cried a lot and tried

to straighten the matter out, but he was as firm as

a rock. Bowman sat there taking it all in and

smiling."

"Jest like Henry Vaughn always was," Abner

commented. " I hain't never yet seed 'im turned

from a thing he set his head to. I've knowed 'im

sence we was boys together, an' I understand 'im,

ef anybody does. You won't win 'im by opposition,

Eric, an', besides " Daniel hesitated, and then

went on, awkwardly: " I don't want to preach to yoti,

my boy, but aside from the political differences be

twixt you an' yore pa, he's got some ground fer bein'

concerned in in yore way o' livin'. He had his

wild days as a boy, but he never let it cost 'im

much. Sometimes when me 'n him's together he

sorter unmelts like, an' talks to me about the way

3

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he feels. Eric, ray boy/ef all reports are true you've already run through a fortune that ud satisfy many an ambitious man fer a lifetime."
" I know that, Uncle Ab," Eric Vaughn admitted, frankly. "I've lived too fast, too high, and too recklessly, and about six months ago, when every thing I had was gone except my plantation and some real estate here in Darley, I went to him and made a clean breast of it all, and promised to turn over a new leaf and settle down. I told him I'd not speculate any more and try to live decently, and I meant it."
"That was good mighty good," exclaimed the old farmer.
" No, it \vasn't, as it turned out, Uncle Ab, for it happened that I simply had to raise money for a private matter of my own which I didn't care to explain to him I couldn't, in fact, for he would have hooted at it. So I mortgaged my planta tion. I thought I could keep it from him till I could replace it pay it off by hard work and econo my -but this sneaking Bowman got to nosing in my affairs, and unearthed the transaction and told father about it. It was the straw that broke the back of the camel. It has undone me as far as father is concerned. He thinks I lost the money in cotton futures or paid some old gambling debt. I really don't deserve his financial help, but it stings like thunder to think his money will go to a man of Bow man's stamp. But, good-bye, I must hurry down town. I see mother is waiting for you."

IV
HE two men parted, and the farmer ) went on to the veranda, where Mrs. j Vaughn stood ready to greet him.
"I'm certainly glad to see you," she __ ___ _ j said, in a plaintive tone, as she gave him her white, blue-veined hand. "Somehow, I always feel that you are a friend who can be counted on in an emergency, and, Mr. Daniel, if there ever was a time when I hungered for human sympathy it is right now. She stroked her black hair, which lay smoothly on her brow, and her thin lips twitched as if from restrained emotion.
"I understand, Mrs. Vaughn," said Abner. "I know how you feel. I've been talkin' to Eric."
"No, you can't understand," sighed the old lady; "nobody but a mother of an only child would know the pain I experience in seeing that child driven from home as mine has been. It is all I can do to act with justice to his father."
"I reckon so," replied Abner, as they sat down in chairs on the veranda. "It's a pity sech a pity!"
"I know Eric is to blame, too," went on Mrs. Vaughn. "He seemed to get under bad influences at college, and he has been under them in one way or another ever since."
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"I always thought," ventured the farmer, "that Eric was allowed to handle money too early in life big money, I mean, That will spile the best young blood that ever run in human veins."
1 ' Oh yes; but how were we to hinder it ? When he came of age Mr. Vaughn gave him the river plan tation, with all the adjacent mountain lands, think ing he would manage it properly, and I'm convinced he "would have come out all right if it had ended there, but Eric had studied mineralogy, and began to send specimens of ores and stones to experts in the North, and finally discovered the big deposit of black marble on his property, and "worked up a company in New York that took it off his hands for a fortune in cash. Was it any "wonder that he "went "wild? Wouldn't that turn the head of any boy of twenty-one, and here where money is so scarce?"
''Yes, it was a great pity," Daniel said. " Ef all that money had 'a' come to 'im in dribs-like, as he growed older an' more experienced, it mought 'a' made a powerful man of 'im. But instead o' that "
"Instead of that, Mr. Daniel" the lady inter rupted him " instead of that he rented out his plan tation, took the money, and began speculating in cotton and grain futures, gambling, horse owning and racing, high society, and what not. Then he took a notion to build that fine residence on the hill. He said he could rent it to some progressive person that there "wasn't a modern, up-to-date house in town, and he wanted to own one. Have you ever seen it, Mr. Daniel?"
"The outside of it, Mrs. Vaughn. I hain't never 26

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been in it. I noticed in passin' that he'd made big improvements walks an' terraces an' stables an' ^ Tine arbors an' sech like."
"It is perfect on the inside," said the old. lady. " It has every improvement I ever saw in any city house; but it was a bad investment, like everything else the boy touched. The rich lumberman that agreed to take it only lived in it a year, and then he was called back North, and it has not been regularly occupied since."
"So it's vacant now?" said Daniel, tentatively. " No, Eric's living there; he said he couldn't keep it insured unless it was occupied, and when he and his father disagreed he simply moved in there. And it has afforded the town gossips something more to talk about, I assure you. Some say Eric is going to get married, and others that it is a regular gam blers' den, where all sorts of lawlessness is practised. But I don't believe my boy is as black as he's paint ed, Mr. Daniel. He's simply free-hearted and goodnatured. A mother knows her own child better than any one else, and I know Eric has a good heart and noble impulses. Three months ago when he promised his father to settle down and not speculate any more I believe he meant it, and I believe there was some debt of honor that caused him to mort gage his plantation." "What about this feller Bowman?" asked Daniel, wisely steering clear of what he deemed a delicate topic. "Eric don't seem to have much faith in his pretensions." Mrs. Vaughn shrugged her shoulders. " I haven't either, Mr. Daniel; I can't help it. I don't like the
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man's looks, and, of course, I can't sympathize with his plan to build a school for negroes at the cost of my boy's patrimony. I wish the negroes well, but I don't feel like giving up all we have to them. Mr. Daniel, my husband's politics have been a great source of trouble to me. You can have no idea how I have suffered on account of his stand. All my people, as you know, were on the Confederate side, and they naturally feel opposed to Mr. Vaughn's views. He offends them every time they come here with his gruff opinions, and nearly all of them have quit coming. Two of my brothers fell at Chickamauga, and, naturally, their wives and daughters dislike to hear the cause for which they fought and died sneered at in their presence. They don't come to see me now once a year. As for Eric, I can't blame him for opposing his father's views. When he "was a little boy at school his playmates used to make fun of him and call him ' Black radi cal,' and he would often come home with his face bruised from hand-to-hand fights with boys who had hurled insults at his father Eric was too young to understand the political side of the matter; he only knew that his father "was reviled by others. But one day he happened to come home and overheard a conversation between Mr. Vaughn and myself, and he walked into the room. He was only fifteen then. He stood up straight before his father and said: 'I see how this thing is now. Mother is a Democrat and you are a Republican. I've been fighting for you against her. I'm going to quit. I'm tired of it. I haven't a single friend in school; they all hate me because you hate the country you
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were born in. I'm going to stand by my mother. From now on I'm a Democrat."
"Bully boy!" ejaculated Daniel. "Pore fellow, he did have a time of it, didn't he? What did old Henry say to that?"
" It was the first time I ever saw my husband completely set back," Mrs. Vaughn said, plaintive ly. " He sat perfectly still over his papers for a long time, and then he got up and left the room. He went out to the orchard. I thought he was going to get a switch to punish Eric, but he never men tioned the subject again."
"The boy must 'a' had a hard time of it them days," Abner said, musingly. " I remember one day at a school exhibition when he got up to speak that mighty nigh the whole house was cheerin' an' laughin' at 'im. Some mischievous chap had sent a nigger boy round town with a bell an' a sign, like they did in them days to advertise public speakin's. The sign said, ' The Hon. Eric Vaughn will address the citizens o' Darley on behalf o' nigger equality at 10 o'clock A.M. Come one, come all.' Eric, it seems, had been housed up in school all mornin', an' didn't know about the boy an' the bell, but the audience did, an' when he come out on the platform a regular storm of cheers went up. The pore little feller thought some'n was wrong with his clothes, an' all through his speech he kept lookin' down at 'em, but he managed to git through all right. He met me during recess an' looked like he was goin' to cry. Somebody had told 'im about the sign, an' he felt humiliated.
" ' Uncle Ab,' says he, ' ef you was me what would 29

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you do about it? I can't stand no sech insults as that. It's all meant fer my father, an' no boy with any pluck ort to allow it to pass.' "
"Poor boy! I remember that now," said Mrs. Vaughn, her handkerchief pressed on her lips.
"I tried to pacify 'im," Abner went on, "but I couldn't. He got at the bottom of it, an' I seed 'im walk up to a feller a head taller'n he was an' invite 'im into the woods nigh the school-house. The feller was game, an' they both went off in a big gang a-hootin' an' a-cheerim'. I started down to stop it, but it was over 'fore I got thar. Kric fit 'im like a tiger-cat, an' laid 'im out with a well-aimed blow. But his trouble wasn't over; bravery an' resentment wouldn' t kill the rancor in the hearts o' the sufferin' South them days. But I've thought a million times o' all that Eric had to bear in his young days, an' I don't agree with Henry, Mrs. Vaughn. I believe ef I couldn't stand up fer my country "without makin' an innocent, sensitive boy o' mine shoulder the brunt o' the business I'd let the country take care o' itself. Patriotism, like charity, ort to begin at home. Henry Vaughn no doubt thought he was right, but he ort to 'a' paid more attention to his family an' the'r comfort. It afforded him some amusement, in his bull-headed way, to contend with his surroundin's, an' he deserves credit, too, fer standin' by what he thought was right, but it wasn' t no fun fer youuns, who loved yore friends, an' wanted to keep 'em."
Mrs. Vaughn was wiping her damp eyes on her white apron.
"It makes my heart bleed to think of Eric's school-days," she said, with quivering lips. "I
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realize the turmoil of them more now than I did then. Do you remember the time my husband ran for Congress on the Republican ticket?"
"1 reckon I do," Abner laughed. "I had a lots o' fur. with 'im over it. He never expected to win; he claimed that it was jest to uphold a principle that he went in the race. Some o' the Republican leaders down in Atlanta told 'im he was the strong est member o' the party in this destrict, an' that it was a disgrace to all concerned not to be represented in the election, so they got him to come out as a candidate."
" I never shall forget that time," said Mrs. Vaughn. "Eric was then about sixteen. The Democrats had gotten up a big torch-light procession, with a brassband and fireworks and transparencies. One of them had an awful picture of my husband at a table eating with a full-blooded negro."
"I remember that un," said Daniel, with an im pulsive, reminiscent laugh. "I seed the sign-paint er a-makin' it in the back room o' Joe Rudd'sbakeshop. He'd finished it all but the hair o' the head when Rudd stepped up an' told 'im to make Henry's hair kinky, an' he did the best job I ever seed in that line. Looked like a million corkscrews was a-growin' out o' Henry's skull. Oh, that made 'im mad! He can stand up fer the negroes, but it makes him mad as thunder to be compared to one."
" I thought Eric never would get over that night," said Mrs. Vaughn. "They marched past our house several times. The boy was always proud-spirited, an' it cut him awfully to see people making sport of his father. He and I were going to church the next

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Sunday Mr. Vaughn wouldn't go, because he said the preachers prayed and talked against him, and he wouldn't mix politics and religion. Eric and I were passing through Main Street, when I saw two flags stretched across the street from two of the highest buildings. One was a plain white banner announc ing the candidacy of Colonel Warnham, the Dem ocratic nominee, and the other was a United States flag with Mr. Vaughn's name beneath it. Eric saw that I had seen the flag, and that it had pained me.
"'Mother,' said he, 'you'd rather father hadn't it put up there isn't that so?' It was a hard ques tion for me to answer, for I have always tried not to say a word to him against Mr. Vaughn, but I couldn't tell him a lie, so I frankly told him that I did regret it."
" I remember," Abner exclaimed, his eyes flashing with interest; "that flag was cut down."
" That very night," said the old lady. " The next morning while we were at breakfast two of Mr. Vaughn's ardent supporters, the rag-tag-and-bobtail of the town, came with the news that some mis creant of the opposition had done the act, and Mr. Vaughn was so mad he couldn't finish his break fast. That afternoon they held a call meeting of Republicans in the parlor. Miss Sadie Belman, the tailor's daughter, sat at the piano and played, 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,' and speeches were made. Somebody was going to be prosecuted. Eric and I sat across the hall in the sitting-room listening to it all. I thought the boy was very pale and unusually quiet. Then we heard a mountaineer testifying that the flag was
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cut down by a certain young man, a cousin of the Democratic nominee. He could, he said, produce th^ proof, an' he wanted the gathering to sanction him in taking out a warrant for the young man's arrest. They voted on it with yeas and nays, the yeas winning. Just then Eric left the fire, where he had been sitting, and went across the hall into the t parlor. I never saw him walk so straight or look more calm in my life. I held my breath, for I heard his young voice ringing out louder and firmer than any that had spoken before.
"You need not take out any warrant for the ar rest of Will Lofton," he said. " He was there after the flag was cut down, not before. I cut it down. I did it because it pained my mother to see it there! All her people aie Democrats, and so am I. If fa ther wants a flag like that to float he ought to float it where it will do more good than here in Georgia, where it only keeps up hard feeling and strife."
"Gee whiz!" Daniel grunted, as he leaned forward rubbing his hands on his knees, " did the boy do that?"
"It was awfully quiet in there for a moment," went on Mrs. Vaughn. " I was thoroughly scared. I didn't know what they would do, for Eric was really guilty of misdemeanor, and they were all wrought up. Eric stalked from the room and stood here on the veranda, white and quivering, his eyes flashing. His father came out to him and told him he was going to turn him over to the law, and "while he was storming at him the curious gathering filed down the walk and out at the gate. But it ended there. Mr. Vaughn is firm himself, but Eric's firmness often
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closed his mouth. It looked to me as if he doubted his own position. The flag was not put up again. Mr. Vaughn was defeated, of course; but from that day to this he and Eric have been at cross-pur poses."
"The boy is jest like his daddy," commented Abner. " Both of 'em refuse to be balked in anything."
The latch of the gate at the end of the gravelled walk clicked. Two men were entering. One was Henry Vaughn, a short, thick-set man with a florid complexion, iron-gray hair, and a short, bristling mustache. His heavy, firm jaw bespoke the in domitable will which was his chief characteristic and had made him what he was. The man accompany ing him was spare-built, middle-aged, and above medium height. He wore a black broadcloth frockcoat, from which the nap had been worn, and a fuzzy, battered silk top-hat.
"That's the nigger-school man with 'im now, ain't it?" asked Daniel.
" Y"es, that's Mr. Bowman," responded Mrs. Vaughn. "They are together all the time, talking over their plans."
Abner said nothing, for the two men were near the steps. As they came up old Vaughn wiped his red brow with a big cotton handkerchief and shook hands with Abner, who was one Democrat with whom he was always cordial. "Glad to see you in town," he said, gruffly. He presented the schoolteacher with a curt wave of his fat hand and a few mumbled words, as if ashamed of the formality.
" I think I saw Mr. Daniel coming out of the jail awhile ago," Bowman smiled. " I was in the clerk's
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office with Mr. Vaughn, looking over some land rec ords, and saw you through the window. The clerk said Warren had sent for you."
" fes, I had a little chat with Jim." Abner was eyin(; the teacher from head to foot, a slow light of curiosity in his mild eyes.
" I presume he has little or no chance for his life," Bowman remarked, in the stilted manner of a man only partly educated. As he spoke he twirled his short mustache, which seemed to have been dyed a dingy brown. " I must confess the whole situation has deeply interested me. I have never seen a community so completely divided over anything. It is quite unique an interesting spiritual problem, Mr. Daniel; a case where the emotions of the senti mental element are at war, as it were, with the bet ter judgment of the law-abiding, thinking citizens. That scamp doesn't deserve a moment's considera tion. If there ever was a cold-blooded murder, Warren committed it, and, besides, his past record is as black as Egyptian night."
Abner nodded, but did not encourage Bowman to a further expression of his views; and as old Vaughn was turning into the wide hall, Bowman, hat in hand, bowed suavely to Daniel and his hostess and followed. Abner, who had risen to greet the new comers, did not resume his chair.
"You are not favorably impressed," Mrs. Vaughn said, in a low, guarded tone, her eyes on the receding men. "I can see that."
"I don't believe in love at fust sight," Abner re plied, with a smile. " Bowman hain't no fool, I kin tell you. He hain't here fer his health; he's got
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Henry Vaughn right square under his thumb, an' ef some'n hain't done he'll mash money out of 'im, an' he'll mash a lots, too. Money's a thing Bowman kin use in his business. Lord, I'll bet this is the biggest game he ever played in his life; but he's got a purty good hand, an' kin bluff. I was jest thinkin' what a shrewd enemy Eric has in 'im."
Mrs. Vaughn sighed; she moved a little nearer Daniel and began to speak in a whisper. " I wish you would go to see Eric, Mr. Daniel. He thinks a great deal of you. Perhaps you could show him the peril he is in and get him to make concessions to his father before it's too late. He doesn't realize it now, but he will in the future."
"I'll go to see him, Mrs. Vaughn," Abner prom ised, as he started off. " Maybe I kin influence 'im some."
"And when you go," added Mrs. Vaughn, holding out her hand, "perhaps it would be a good idea to persuade him to confide more in his father. You might show him that Mr. Vaughn is getting old and more fault-finding, and" the old woman seemed to hesitate "you might remind him that he did promise not to spend any more money, and that this big mortgage on his plantation, without any explana tion from him, is calculated to rouse distrust. Per haps Eric will tell Mr. Vaughn all about that trans action, and remove a false impression."
"I'll mention that p'int to him," Abner promised. "I'm inclined to think the boy will do what is right; he has a mighty open way about him, an' he'll want to relieve yore mind, too."

fARLEY was a growing place. It was 2 gradually recovering from the serious | back-set given it by the war. A big \ cotton factory had been built in the I suburbs of the town, and it gave em ployment to several hundred boys and girls, mostly from the mountains, and a system of water-works supplied the place with water from a big, clear spring which gushed from the rocky side of a hill and ad vertised to all prospective settlers that Darley was in favor of progress. Abner Daniel noted certain changes in the main business street as he went through it that day. Progressive shop - men had torn down the old-fashioned brick fronts of the stores and put in modern plate-glass windows, in which, with no little taste, they displayed their wares. These men discouraged loafing about their houses by placing planks with tacks nailed through them, so that their sharp points protruded, on all the win dow-sills and other nooks in which idle men were accustomed, under the old regime, to sit down and whittle sticks. There were no street-cars, but half a dozen ram shackle "hacks" were owned and operated by ne groes. The horses were thin and underfed, but what could you expect when the fare for the first
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mile was only ten cents and nothing was charged for time in which the vehicle was not in motion; and if the driver happened to be an old family ser vant, or a descendant of one, he wanted to serve you for nothing. But this material progress and awakening of financial interests had done little tow ards altering the hearts and manners of the in habitants. Sons and daughters of aristocratic par ents, who had never known the meaning of toil or care, stood behind counters as gracefully as their forebears had presided at State dinners or danced at country balls. Men remained uncovered when talking to ladies in the street, and if you met an acquaintance in the public mart fifty times a day fifty nods and greetings were his and your due.
And, somehow, visitors, sojourners from the ac tive North, felt that it was as it should be; they liked it, and some of them settled there, identified them selves with the place and people, and remained to feed on and feel the genial "warmth of a hospitality which, remnant although it was of something dying out forever, was strange, new, and inviting.
Not a few citizens possessed money and were in various \vays accumulating more. Money earned money easily; from ten to fifteen per cent, was not unusual.
Henry Vaughn owed his present wealth and, if the truth must be told, much of his unpopularity with his less-fortunate neighbors to the fact that, not believing in the ultimate success of the Confed eracy, he had invariably swapped his slaves for gold, and converted all the Confederate money that came his way into land. This family wealth had tended
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indirectly to make Eric popular, for not only had he,

as he grew to manhood, embraced the political views

of his mother's family, but he had ever shown a dis

position to cast his father's accumulation to the four

winds of heaven, and that was balm to the wounds

of the element who had come out of the struggle

sore, impoverished, and without hope of better

ment. Vaughn's fortune was a rasping verification

of Vaughn's early prophecy, and that hurt.

Abner went to a little restaurant in the back end

of a half-empty store-room, which was kept by an

old negro, and ordered his dinner. It consisted of

fried chicken, hot biscuits, and strong coffee, and

when he hdd eaten it he went to Eric Vaughn's of

fice, up one flight of dingy stairs over the bank on the

street corner across from the post-office. It was a

barren-looking room, which Eric had rented merely

as a place to meet his tenants and look over their

accounts 'when they came into town for supplies.

The young planter was at his desk when Daniel

came up, his heavy shoes clattering and creaking

on the stairs and in the empty corridor.

" Oh, it's you, Uncle Ab!" Eric exclaimed. " Come

right in and pull up a chair. With that smile of

yours you do a young fellow good."

Abner closed the heavy door, with its old-fashion

ed white handle and black enamelled lock screwed

on the inside, drew up a plain chair near to Eric's

revolving one, and sat down, crossing his long legs.

For once he was not chewing tobacco, but he had

thrust a probing forefinger into the pocket of his

vest for what was left of his generosity to Warren

in the morning.

*

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"The last time I was in this sanctum sanctorum," said Abner, looking around the room, "you intro duced me to that big, rich chum o' yor'n, Blathwait."
"Oh yes, I remember," said Eric. "He's not here now. He only passes through Darley two or three times a year. He took a fancy to you, Uncle Ab. Said you were a philosopher in jeans, and that he liked to hear you talk."
" I don't know as I'd care to hear anybody talk much ef I had that feller's roll," Daniel answered, dryly. "They tell me Blathwait's wealth jest pours in on 'im when he's asleep. It seems to come that away once in a while. The Lord may be on the side o' honest endeavor, but He certainly winks at the come-easy sort. I've seed hard labor out at the seat o' its pants while high livin' was gittin' rich with its head packed in cracked ice. I sometimes think the niggers has it down about right when they sing:
" ' De Lawd move in er mischievous way His blunders to perform.' "
Eric Vaughn laughed. "That certainly is turn ing the good old hymn upside down." There was in his eyes a studious if not a suspicious expression as he regarded the old man before him. It was as if he were \vondering why Abner had called so promptly after his visit to the home of his parents.
Abner laughed out impulsively. "I had a lesson in self-control this morning," he said. " I was madder 'n a wet hen as I come in town. I was ridin' past a house on the outskirts. It stood
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sorter up on high props like on the side o' the road. I was jest goin' by when I noticed a little baby on the top step a-holt of a chear, barely keepin' its balance. That thar that thar rag babies wear the cloth women tie on 'em had slid down all in a wad at the baby's ankles, an' it looked to me that ef the child got scared or tried to take a single step it ud topple down to the rocky ground below. It wasn't any o' my business I didn't even know whose brat it was an' so I rid on to the corner o' the street. Thar I stopped an' looked back. Some how I felt that I wasn't doin' my duty. It wasn't a clean child; its clothes, sech as it had, was raggety an' black as the pot, but it had a pair o' big, wonderin' eyes. So, after considerable reflection, I final ly got off my mare an' hitched an' went back, an', by gum! I'm here to say I got thar in the nick o' time, fer the baby had let loose o' the chear. It was a-pumpin' its right leg up to git it out o' the rag an' a-staggerin' right on the edge o' the porch. I helt my breath as I run up the steps an' ketched the child an' put it furder on the porch. I was tryin' to pull the rag up to whar it belonged some women pin things mighty careless, or, I dunno, may be the child had shrunk sence its breakfast. Well, while I was engaged at this job the baby's mammy come to the door an' snatched it from me. She was by all odds the maddest female I ever laid eyes on. I tuck off my hat an' begun to explain that the rag had slid down an' the child was in danger o' breakin' its fool neck, but she got hotter an' hot ter an' begun to snort. ' I don't want no strange man a-dressin' of my childern,' she said. 'Its pa

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is out in the back lot, an' ef you don't git away from here I'll call 'im.' I tried ag'in to tell 'er about the rag, but she mighty nigh had a fit. She went to the end o' the porch an' begun to yell out fer somebody to come, an' you bet I got a slide on me. I didn't deserve sech treatment; but while I was foolin' about the baby I discovered that it was a boy, an' fer all I know I may 'a' saved the life of a president of the United States. But it was a full hour 'fore I got over bein' mad at that woman. Even now I feel like goin' back an' spankin' the child right before her eyes."
Eric laughed heartily. "I'm afraid the woman didn't take in the situation at all," he remarked. '' She no doubt thought you were criticising the baby's clothes, and, as you say it was not well cared for, she may have been so sensitive over that fact that she failed to listen to what you wanted to say. Maybe she'll think it over and offer a reward for some one to put her on your track."
Eric was silent for a moment, and then, eying Abner closely, he went on with a laugh:
" Do you know, Uncle Ab, you play a part to per fection. I'll bet you a new hat my mother has been talking to you about me."
The eyes of the old farmer went down. He had fished the piece of tobacco from his pocket and held it in his hand.
"I don't know about that," he said, sheepishly. " Now I come to think of it, me and her talked about a good many things an' people in general. That feller Bowman occupied considerable o' our time. I hain't here to lecture you, my boy. I don't go
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about tellin' folks what the'r duty is, nur hain't. A man's duty is what he thinks it is, not "what another man thinks about it. I never hear a man talkin' about what somebody else ort to do without noticin' some n' he's left undone. An' you bet yore bottom dollar I'm open to criticism myself, an' it stings me like salt on the back of a whipped convict. So I try to be merciful. Lordy, they come as nigh as peas a few years back a-turnin' me out o' meetin' over at Rock Crest, beca'se I shot off my bazoo* about what I thought was Scriptur'. I was havin' a good time tellin' folks about how I interpreted sacred writ, but it seems I was tramplin' the'r pet notions in the mire. Sometimes I think I've thought too much on new lines an' not enough on old. I dunno. The more I occupy myself with the new the less I hold to the old, an' ev'rything new either melts under the touch or gits out o' date 'fore you kin pin it down. Burnin' brimstone an' melted lead seems an awful diet fer disembodied sperits to subsist on through eternity, but I'd ruther have that, an' stay clear of it, than the awful uncertainty as to what is in store fer us wishy-washy mortals."
Eric toyed with his pen for a moment, a thought ful frown on his brow.
" My mother spoke of my promise to reform and settle down, didn't she, Uncle Ab?" he suddenly asked.
"Why, y-e-s," the farmer admitted, slowly "yes, she said you'd sorter agreed to that is, not to spend quite so much money in the future, an' one thing or 'nuther; I don't exactly know what she did say."
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"And she told, you, also, that I had broken my promise," Eric went on, "and that I had borrowed money on my plantation without explaining what I wanted it for. Well, all that's true, Uncle Ab. As I told you, I broke my promise to my father, and if he disinherits me and turns all his money over to Bowman and his scheme, I reckon I'll deserve what I get. I ought not to have made that prom ise without knowing positively that I could keep it. It turned out afterwards that I could not, an' that's all there is to it."
"I'm awfully sorry about that, Eric," said Abner, "for I want to see you do well, and I'm wor ried like rips about the stand yore daddy's took agin you an' an' the influence this Bowman has over 'im. I 'lowed ef thar was any way o' satisfyin' yore pa about that mortgage "
"There's no way under the sun, Uncle Ab," broke in the young man. "I simply cannot explain it to my father; he would be infuriated if he knew where the money went; he could not sympathize with the purpose for which I spent it am now spending it, in fact. But as for you, Uncle Ab, I know you well enough to believe you would think I am right right even at the cost of violating a promise right even if I break myself all to pieces and remain poor the rest of my life."
The old man raised his brows. "You say I would, Eric?" " I'm sure of it, Uncle Ab. Didn't you tell me once" the speaker's voice softened "that when you were a young man you loved a good girl who died?"
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Abner's face changed; the glance of his eye be came more gentle and sympathetic. He nodded.
"Yes, I told you that, my boy. It was a long, long time ago."
"What you told me, Uncle Ab, made a deep im pression on me, for you said that in all the years of your life since then that you had continued to hold that girl to your heart that you had never met any one to take her place, and that is why you are still unmarried."
"That's true, Eric, that's God's truth the idea of marriage after she passed away seemed mockery. Folks tried to make me think of it, but I never wanted nobody else. I never shall want anybody else. I reckon I was peculiar that way, but I couldn't help it. She kept her word with me till she died, an' I couldn't 'a' done no less, even ef I did live on an' face a hard, lonely life."
" Uncle Ab " Eric's voice was tremulous and deep " there's a time in every young man's life when he comes to two dividing roads, one leading towards right and solid happiness, the other towards inevita ble wrong and misery. Sometimes it is only an acci dent which leads him one way or the other. I often think the thing that started me in the wrong direc tion was too big and grave to be called an accident. It seemed more like the malice of fate. It hap pened five years ago, and it still holds me as firmly as your love for your dead sweetheart. I'm telling you what has never passed my lips before. I know I can trust you. I was hardly more than a boy when it happened a happy, careless, romantic boy, full of dreams of conquests, riches, power everything!"
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" You mean the time you come into all that money?" said Daniel, deeply interested.
" No, I don't mean that. What I'm going to tell you, Uncle Ab, happened before I sold the marble interest and got hold of that money. I was just out of college, and had settled on my plantation with the determination to manage it properly and make a useful man of myself. I was living in the house where my mother and father had lived before moving to town. My father wanted me to stay there to keep me out of the social set here, and I rather liked it. I saw a good deal of my friends, any way, for they came out to my place on their picnics and we often had parties at the farm-house."
"I wasn't livin' on my farm then," said Abner. " I was down in Alabama, I think."
"No, you were not out there then in fact, I had few near neighbors I cared about. Well, to go on with my story. I had considerable idle time on my hands, and often had difficulty in amusing myself when I \vas not fishing or hunting. But one day I ran upon a new experience."
Eric paused, and then went on again. "I met the daughter of a disreputable farmer a drunkard -whose little farm joined mine. She was beautiful, Uncle Ab -and good. She had great, honest brown eyes. Her mother, who was dead, had belonged to a good family in fact, she had cut herself off from her people in Virginia by marking as she had. The girl, Marie, was living with her father and working for him, and once a week she came to the spring branch not far from my house to do the family washing. I met her there one
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morning in her sun-bonnet and plain but becoming gingham dress. She was very timid at first, but week after week I watched her come down the hill from her father's cottage to her tub and bench, and I never failed to.join her. After a while she grew to know me, and we became good friends. More than that, Uncle Ab, I felt towards her as I had never felt towards a woman, and have never felt since."
"Ah, you were in love!" Abner sighed. "You were really in love!"
"She told me all about her life," the young man pursued, with a nod of acquiescence. "She'd had few kind words spoken to her since the death of her mother six or seven years before. Her father was half the time under the influence of whiskey in fact, he had been a moonshiner at one time, and when drunk he was a brute. He had unjustly suspected his wife of being untrue to him and driven her from his home. She left, taking the child, who was then about six years of age. They lived apart about three years, then the mother died. He attended the funeral and returned home with the child. Marie grew up under his care. You can imagine \vhat such a man would make of an innocent, re fined girl."
"Awful! awful!" cried Abner; "but go on, Eric." " Meeting her completely changed the order of my life," Eric complied. " I gave up going to town. I had actually no thought from morning to night aside from her. We met often, always by stealth, for she was afraid of her father. She had a remarkable mind. She could read and write well, and was
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quick, witty, and full of originality. She was al ways astonishing me with her critical observations and keen insight. I gave her books to read, and she simply devoured them, often asking me the most profound questions about them.
" But our smooth sailing was not to continue. Her father caught us together one day and ordered me never to see her again. He was full of evil suspi cions, and could not believe a man in my position could honestly care for a girl in hers. He hinted to me that he had heard of my father's acting dishon orably with a poor girl in his young days. I did not know whether this was true or not, and so I could not dispute it. Marie did not tell me so, but I after wards learned that he had whipped her that night. However, we managed to keep up our meetings. Under one pretext or other I always met her when I knew her father had gone to town."
"That was not exactly right," said Daniel "not exactly the straight thing, my boy."
'' I know that better than any living man,'' Eric responded, bitterly. " Now, here is what I'm com ing to, and it is a hard thing to speak of even to as good a friend as you are, Uncle Ab. Sometimes I think, though, that it would have been better for me if I had confided in some one before this; the secret has been almost too much for me."
"You kin trust me, Eric," Abner said, feelingly. Eric rested his head on his hand for a moment. Abner had never seen such a grave look on his face. "One day," Eric went on, "I found in the garret of my house a trunk filled with some fine old silk, satin, and lace dresses my grandmother had worn in
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her young ladyhood bonnets, hats, stockings, slip pers, gloves, and, in fact, everything that a young ;voman of fashion wore in that day. She had died soon after her marriage in fact, just after my moth er's birth, and the family had never disturbed her belongings. I told Marie about the things, and she couldn't control her girlish eagerness to see them. The poor child had never had any finery of her own, and what I told her roused her curiosity to a high pitch. Every day afterwards she'd bring up the subject, and sit with clasped hands while, to gratify her, I tried to describe the various articles.
'' On one of these occasions we were walking quite near my house, and as she had told me her father had gone to town, it struck me that she might as well gratify her wish, so I asked her into the house. She objected, but I explained that Uncle Lewis, my only servant, the old negro who cooked for me, was away, and that there would be no harm in it or danger of getting caught. I was only a boy then, Uncle Ab, a child in experience, and carried away with romantic enthusiasm. I insisted on her going, but still she drew back. She had known little of a mother's care or advice, and yet something seemed to warn her against the step. I was dead wrong. I realize that now, God knows, but I kept arguing the question till she finally gave in. Once started, she seemed utterly blind to danger. She actually tripped, sing ing and dancing, ahead of me, across the old mead ow, urging me to hurry."
"Jest you two, and all alone together!" muttered the old listener. "How foolish!"
"Yes, it was that; it was more than that it was
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sheer madness," Eric said, in a low, constrained tone. '' She had no sooner seen the things spread out on the lounge, table, and chairs of the sitting-room than she forgot everything else. She seemed unconscious even of my presence."
"Jest like a woman, fer the world!" Abner said, as if speaking to himself; "but go on, Eric, I don't want to stop you."
"She was holding one of the most beautiful old gowns up to her chin, and admiring the effect in the big mirror, when I thoughtlessly suggested that she go into my mother's old room and actually put it on. She laughed like a happy child, and, selecting an armful of things, she told me to wait, and darted into the room and closed the door. She was gone a long time in fact, she had forgotten that I was even in existence, so when fully half an hour had passed I called to her. She did not hear me, and I went and rapped on the door. Then she came out. Great God! Uncle Abner, I shall never, if I live to be an old man, cease to thrill every time I recall the start ling picture she made. With a graceful walk, and a pretty, quaint courtesy, and a face full of smiles, she came into the room. She had done up her won derful hair in some way suitable to the high collar of the old-fashioned gown, and in the big sleeves her small hands seemed dainty and white, and I have never seen a woman's feet look so small and slender as hers did in the high-heeled slippers. I had once shown her the figures of the minuet, and she went through some of them with a grace I have never seen equalled. I was amazed. Somehow, in her presence, I found myself unable to speak with my

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usual freedom. She seemed, all at once, to have risen high above me. I never felt so stupid in my lifc. Then it was, Uncle Ab, that I discovered what she was to me. She seemed to catch on to my em barrassment, and, woman-like, it amused her. She sat back in one of the old-fashioned rocking-chairs and pretended to be a grand lady conversing on the topics of seventy-five years ago. She -was simply brilliant superb!"
" Wonderful, wonderful!" Abner ejaculated. " I kin almost see the whole thing, you tell it so straight."
"Wait till I have finished," Eric sighed; "wait till you know what happened.
"Occupied as we were we did not notice that it was growing late. She was too pure of thought to dream of our real danger, and it was growing dark when it suddenly occurred to her that her father might have returned from town. She hurried into the room, and then she called out to me that she was afraid she 'would tear some of the lace on the dress if she didn't have a light. I lit a lamp and took it to her. Leaving her to change her dress, I went out on the front porch, and while I stood there her fa ther came round the corner of the house. I had no sooner seen his face than I saw he was drink ing and beside himself with rage."
"Good Lord, my boy, you was in a box!" Abner said, excitedly.
"Standing before me, he asked me where his daughter was.
"I was afraid to speak the truth, Uncle Ab act ually afraid that it might cost the girl her life, so I deliberately lied. I told him I did not know."
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"I see, I see!" said the old fanner; ''of course you had to protect the girl."
"Ah, but you don't understand," said Eric, his lips tight from emotion; '' when I made that denial he looked up at me with an awful snarl and told me I was a liar. I tried to pacify him, but he only sneered in his furious way and repeated his charge. Then he told me, Uncle Ab, that he had watched and seen us come in. I was spellbound. I couldn't move. He went past me into the house, opened the door of the room, and found her found her just as she was beginning to to put on her own poor dress. He came and stood before me and glared at me like an angry beast. I tried to explain, but nothing I said went down with him. He was too coarse-grained too gross to grasp the sentiment which had actuated us. He had doubted his wife's purity, and he could not believe in her offspring especially under those circumstances. Then Marie came out of the room. I saw that she feared him physically, but had not yet dreamed of the awful deductions he had drawn. He grabbed her by the arm, almost wrenching it from her body, and jerked her to the gate. I ran between them twice, but at her screaming request I desisted, and he took her home."
"Awful, awful!" cried Daniel; "what a pity an' you both so young an' thoughtless!''
"I saddled my horse and started to town," Eric went on. "I was afraid he would kill her, and in tended to report it to the authorities; but at the gate I met old Mrs. Dilworthy, who lived next door to him. She had come to warn me to stay out of
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the old man's way. She said he would kill me when he got drunk again. From the old woman's talk I saw she had his opinion of our conduct, and, indeed, it took some time to convince her of the truth; then she was so furious with me over the thoughtless way in which I had compromised the girl that she could not be calm. When she learned I had started to take out a warrant for the man's arrest she objected to it. She said it would cause talk, and that it would be better to let the matter rest where it was. I saw she was right."
"Yes, she was right," Abner Daniel said. " Folks with the best intentions would have looked at the matter jest as the gal's daddy did; folks is built that away; they are so full o' evil that they see it wharever they look. It's like bein' so full o' bile that you see black spots 'fore yore eyes."

VI
VAUGHN rose from his chair and \ went to the window looking out upon j the main street. He parted the soiled I curtains and stood 'with his face close ___ _ _ __ _\ to the dingy glass. Abner saw that he was deeply moved and wanted to comfort him, but knew nothing appropriate to say. Presently the young man turned back and stood with his hand on the top of his desk. " I have often thought that no other human be ing ever suffered quite as I did that night," he went on, unsteadily. " If I had been as old as I am now I would have known what to do. I ought to have gone at once to her father and forced him to to give Marie to me as my -wife." " Yes, you railly ort to 'a' done that," said Daniel; " that's the thing any honorable man would 'a' done ef he'd had plenty o' time fer reflection an' loved the girl as I see you did." "Fate was dead against me," Eric sighed. "I didn't sleep a wink that night in fact, I spent the whole of it walking about the meadow before her cottage, praying for light and begging God to show me what to do. The next day I went to Mrs. Dilworthy's house and threw myself on the old wom an's mercy, begging her to go over and tell the girl's
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father how innocent we were and ask her to marry me."
"Ah, you did that, after all!" exclaimed Abner, in a breath of relief.
"Yes, I knew that my father would object, and perhaps even my mother, and that I would be dis inherited for my father had no use for the class the man belonged to but I was not going to lose Marie if I could help it."
"You had the right sort o' pluck, my boy," com mented Daniel. " But go on go on!"
" I sat in Mrs.Dilworthy's kitchen," Eric continued, "while she scudded across the broom-sedge field. I could see her through the window. I saw her reach the back fence and stand calling out. The old man came to the door and leaned against the jamb. Even at that distance I saw that he "was drunk. He glared at her a moment, and then sat down on the step and let his head fall to his knees asleep! A moment later Marie came out, stepping over his knees to pass. She came to the fence in the poor soiled dress she wore at home. God knows my heart bled for her. She and Mrs. Dilworthy stood talking for several minutes; then Mrs. Dilworthy came slowly back to me, her head hanging down under her sun-bonnet. She entered the kitchen, and without a word began to fix the log fire. I was al most afraid to ask her what had happened, she seem ed so disturbed. Presently she took off her bonnet and sat down.
"'I hardly know what to tell you,' she began. 'A woman's the hardest thing in God's world to un derstand, anyway, an' I don't know how to take
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this one. Yesterday Marie was a young girl, to-day she's a soured old woman. She declares her daddy said things to 'er last night that made 'er hate ev ery man on earth an' wonder why God created 'em to devil women. When I told 'er you wanted to marry 'er, she flared up an' said she'd never marry no man'alive to convince folks she was a good girl, an' she hoped you'd never come nigh 'er agin.'
"I begged the old woman," Eric pursued, "to see her once more and try to show her how I felt, and the next day, and the next, she went, but it was always the same. The girl's father, Uncle Abner, had simply shocked the very soul out of her. Three days later Mrs. Dilworthy came to me with such a grave face that I knew something unusual had happened. She informed me that the old man and the girl had suddenly disappeared. They had closed up their house and gone away in the night.
" She had no idea where they had gone, but a week later she got a short, scrawled note from Marie, writ ten from Gainesville, the other side of the mountains. She wrote that they were going farther away, on some business of her father's, but that she did not know where to, or if they would ever return. The note contained not a word about me, no message nothing! That brute had killed all the feeling she had ever had for me.
"After that I had no news of her till the follow ing winter. Then Mrs. Dilworthy got a note from Marie, from Porter Springs, a small watering-place, you know, not far from Gainesville. Marie wrote that she was seriously ill, but that some wealthy strangers she had met had been giving her medical
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attention and were otherwise very kind to her. I was on the point of going to her, but Mrs. Dilworthy wouldn't listen to it."
"I reckon she was right, too, all considered," put in Abner, thoughtfully. "It wouldn't 'a' been the best policy, unless the girl had give you more en couragement than she did."
Eric went back to the window and looked out. Abner saw his features working under strong emo tion, and was beginning to fear that his remark had been ill-placed, when Eric suddenly turned to him and went on:
"The next spring the old man came back, Uncle Abner, he came alone ! Marie was dead."
"Ah, I see it all now!" said Abner, with a sigh. " My boy, I know how you felt."
"Yes, Marie was dead," Eric went on. " He told Mrs. Dilworthy about her long illness and death and asked her to tell me never to cross his path again. He said I "was responsible for her end that if he had not been forced to take her away from me she would still have been alive."
"Ah, that was a dirty, unfair thing to say!" Ab ner's eyes were flashing; he rose and stood near Eric, laying his hand tenderly on the young man's arm.
"That, together with the realization of her loss, made a demon of me," Eric went on. "It was the turning-point in my life, Uncle Ab. I had never been a hard drinker, but I took to it like a fish to water, and I became reckless in other ways. I didn't care for anything or anybody."
"Poor boy! my poor boy!" Abner's arm rested affectionately on Eric's shoulder and passed half-
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way round his neck. " Did you ever meet the old scamp face to face?" he asked.
" Once, as he was returning from town," answered Eric. " I was out hunting, and saw him quite a dis tance ahead of me coming along the lonely road a mile from my farm, just beyond the river mill. He was sober. I saw that from his steady gait. Uncle Ab, I had two or three drinks in me, and had been thinking bitterly over it all, and then and there I made up my mind that he was going to attack me, and that either he or I should die."
"Oh no, my boy!" Abner's hand slid mechani cally from Eric's shoulder and hung inertly at his side. "I'm sorter sorry you told me that. It sp'iles it all."
"Wait till I'm through," Eric went on, huskily. " I had my shot-gun, and I remember that I looked carefully at the caps to be sure that it would not fail. I knew he always carried a pistol. I didn't care which of us fell. But as he trudged towards me through the deep sand, all at once it came over me that he was Marie's father. She had once told me how he had petted her when she was a baby, and how he bought toys for her before whiskey and bad associates got him down, and, suddenly, instead of wanting to kill him, I wanted "
Eric's voice caught in his throat; Abner's hand slid back on his shoulder, and the two stood with full faces looking into each other's eyes.
"I wanted," Eric finished, with a gulp, "to take the tottering, despised old wreck by the hand and convince him that I had never wronged him. He looked so lonely, so forsaken and ill-used. His hair
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was tangled, his clothes torn and patched, and he shook from head to foot. As he neared me, I stood at the side of the road, my gun pointed downward. He glared at me as he came up, and stood erect in front of me. He thrust his hand in his hip-pocket, and drew out his revolver.
"'What are you doing with that gun?' he asked. 'Are you waiting for me? If you are, I'm ready for you. I've been ready for you a long time. We can have it out here in two minutes.'
"I told him calmly, and in as gentle a tone as I could command, that I was not waiting for him, that I hoped to assure him that I was his friend and had never harmed him.
"'You lied to me, once, damn you,' he growled, 'an' your sort will lie to a man like I am till he's black in the face. You lied when you told me my girl was not in your house.' His sudden accusation, true as it was, threw me off my feet. I tried to de fend my action; but he was not listening to me, and was almost frothing at the mouth. I heard his re volver click as he pressed the hammer back, and I confidently thought my last hour had come, and yet I did not obey the human instinct of defending my self. I was too miserable to want to live, anyway. We stood staring at each other for a minute, and then he lowered his weapon. ' Don't you ever cross my path again,' he said. 'Remember that. If you do, I'll shoot you down like a dog.'
" He walked on, swinging his revolver in his hand. I sat down on a log at the side of the road and looked after him. Somehow my heart was still full of pity. It was one of the few good impulses I had in that
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day. I was on a downward road. Good rentals were coming in from my tenants, and I spent money like water in Atlanta, Mobile, Savannah, and Au gusta, where I knew plenty of idle sporting and so ciety men. Later, I had that accursed "windfall. I sold my marble interest, and had more money than I knew what to do with. Father tried to get legal possession of it, but I beat him at the game. I tried to drown my memories in fast living. I gam bled; I bet on cotton futures; I once tried to get some men together to corner the wheat market, and was called a dare-devil in all the papers. Through it all, Uncle Ab, the picture of Marie as I had seen her that day at the farm-house clung to me like a glimpse through the wall of heaven. Women liked me. I was popular; and yet I would have given it all all my money, friends everything for one touch of the hand of that poor dead girl, the daugh ter of the lowest reprobate I had ever known."
" Bully! bully boy!" the old man exclaimed. He turned his face away and "wiped a tear from his eyes. "I thank God for bringin' me to this room to-day! Thar are too few men o' yore stamp alive, my boy. An' ef that old daddy o' yor'n only knowed you as I do, he'd be ashamed he'd kick hisse'f fer plottin' agin you."
" But he must never know, Uncle Ab," Eric hast ened to say. "You will understand why when I have finished."
" He'll never hear it from me. Go on, Eric, I'm a-listening," said Abner. "God knows I could lis ten to talk like that all day; it's the sort o' preachin' a man don't hear from the most consecrated pulpits.
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The souls that have struggled through the agony o' death are the ones that speak God's word the loudest, an' I kin see what you've suffered."
" Six months ago a good influence came into my life," the young man went on. " I met Carlton Blathwait at a house-party near Brunswick. He was a rich, self-made young man. He seemed to sin gle me out from the other fellows, and we became friends. He never lost an opportunity to give me good advice. The upshot of it was I determined to settle down and go to work. As you know, I made promises to my father not to spend any more money. He only half believed in my reformation, but he seemed willing to try me. Then "
"Then you backslid, as was natural," said Abner. encouragingly, when Eric paused.
" I don't think, Uncle Ab, no matter 'what the rest of the world believes, that you will blame me for what I did that is, when I have told you the whole story."
"You don't think I will, my boy?" asked Abner, deeply interested.
" Not if I am any judge of men. I simply obeyed a law of nature. I was obliged to act as I did. Well, to go on: I had kept my promise to my father only about three months when a catastrophe happened to me. Marie's father had been sinking lower and lower under his bad habits, till he finally shot and killed a man."
"Good God, Eric! you've been talking all this time about Si Warren'." And Daniel shrank back, staring in surprise.
The young man nodded. " Yes, I've been talking about him, Uncle Abner."
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"Ah! I remember now hearin' that he did have a pretty daughter," said Abner, wonderingly, " though I've never seed her that I know of. She was away with 7 er mother, I reckon."
For a moment Eric was silent, then he went on: " Uncle Ab, I attended the committal trial of that old man. I sat in the packed court-house among the rest. Not a soul suspected that I was feeling his awful condition as keenly as if he had been my own father. They had literally dragged him through the streets a howling mob threatening to lynch him, and, even under the eye of the judge, the room was full of threats and hisses. I heard his awfully calm, almost indifferent statement that he had acted in self-defence, and out of all that heard him that day I was perhaps the only one that believed he was speaking the truth. The town papers said he was a disgrace to the State, and that speedy justice was the only thing that would satisfy the community. " Unable to sleep that night, I heard men passing along the street, and went out and joined them. I knew them all. They were from the mountains men you and I know and like. They told me frank ly that they were on the way to have a lynching-bee. For two hours I talked with them, using every ar gument I could think of, and finally persuaded them to disband." "Good, good! bully, my boy, bully!" " I don't take credit for it,'' Eric made haste to say. " I seemed to be fighting for myself. It seemed to me if Marie had been alive she would have begged for his life, and I gloried in acting in her place." "My Lord, I should think you would, my boy!"
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" It was generally believed that Warren would not be able to employ a lawyer," Eric went on. "He had, himself, given up all hope of coming clear. Then it was that I broke my promise to my father. To defend a case like that considerable money was needed, and I mortgaged my plantation to raise it. I had been to Hammond and confided in him to some extent. I regarded him as the only lawyer who could clear Warren if it was possible. He promised not to let the old man know I was helping. He's a shrewd business-man as well as a lawyer, and he told me he had other important matters to come on in other courts at the same date, and that he would not take the matter up without a big fee in advance. I got up the money. Later it was nec essary to raise more to pay detectives, who were scouring the country to locate Abe Wilson, the wit ness whose oath would undoubtedly have set War ren free."
"Yes, that's a fact," said Abner, thoughtfully. "But," Eric went on, in a grave tone, "we lost. Everything I did, all the money I spent, every effort I made was of no avail. Warren is sentenced and will die unless we can stay the execution long enough to find Abe Wilson." Abner's brow was clouded. He went back to his chair and sat down. Eric followed, leaning on his desk. " Now, you know my whole life as no other man knows it," he faltered. " I'm almost afraid you do not approve perhaps you, too, are against Warren; he has gained some sympathizers, and warm-heart ed ones, but other good citizens are still bitter
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against him, and opposed to the fight that was made to save his life."
"I'm on his side," said Abner. "In fact, I was before this talk with you. Heaven knows, I'd like to help 'im out now! I went to see him this morn ing. Eric, I feel honored " the old man's eyes were filling again -'' I feel honored by the confi dence you've showed in me, an' ef God gives me the strength I'm goin' to do what I kin to save that pore old cuss. He's done a lot o' mean things when he was drunk; but I believe he shot Buford in selfdefence, an', that bein' the case, he deserves the mercy o' the lav/ as much as the highest in the land."
The two men clasped hands. " I really was not counting on your support," said Eric, warmly, "but you can do more for me than any man in the State."
"I'm goin' to do all I kin," the old farmer said, as he rose and moved towards the door. "Good-day, Eric, I'll think it over an' see you agin. You know we've got till the fust of August to work on this busi ness, an' while thar's life thar's hope."
Eric put out his hand and detained the old man. " Remember," he said, " Warren must not know I'm at the bottom of this; he has made Hammond mad several times trying to find out if he was paid. If he knew I had a hand in it, we could do nothing with him."
" I understand that," Abner replied, as he turned from the room. On the stairs in the corridor, to which Eric had politely followed him, the old man paused. "As I understand it," he said, in a guarded undertone, "you an' me an' old Mrs. Dilworthy are
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the only folks tliat knows about about you an' Warren's daughter."
"The only ones on earth," Eric said, emphatical ly. "And I can trust that old woman, Uncle Ab. She has never mentioned it to a soul. All these years she has never opend her mouth about it."
"Then thar's nothin' to fear on that score," said Abner, and he trudged on down the stairs to the street below.

VII
I HE following Sunday but one found /Abner Daniel on his farm. He always I attended meeting at the little Methodj ist church of which he was a member. | He was attired in his best black frockcoat, which, in the summer-time, was worn without a vest. He had on a white shirt, a black necktie, and broadcloth trousers. On his way along the dusty valley road he passed a dilapidated cotton-gin, with its rambling sheds and awkward -looking press. Farther on was a dismantled sorghum mill, the cir cular rut worn by the horses' hoofs showing distinct ly on the greensward around it. There lay the shal low iron pans in which the juice of the cane was boiled down to molasses. Then Abner crossed a bridge over a clear, fast-flowing creek, and the meet ing-house was before him. It was only about ten o'clock, and the service did not begin till eleven, but Sunday-school was held in advance, and Abner had a Bible-class. It had only two members besides him self. Jim Garden, the little shoemaker who lived at Darley, but spent his Sundays on his father's farm, was one. The other was George Leftwich, a heavy, half-bald, unmarried man of about thirty - five, who owned the cross-roads' store of the neighbor hood.
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As Abner looked in at the door of the little, unpainted building, he heard the buzz of many voices and knew that the exercises were already in progress. He saw, also, that Garden and Leftwich had arrived and were in their places in the '' amen corner,'' at the right of the crude pulpit. Indeed, they were look ing eagerly towards him as he entered. Abner walked straight up the aisle, with a pleasing nod to those who chose to see him, and sat down on the bench in front of his two friends.
"I'm a little late," he apologized, "but, boys, it wasn't my fault. Aunt Lucy, that fool nigger that cooks fer me, emptied a plate o' ham gravy on my coat when it was a-hangin' on a chair before the kitch en fire. I hung it thar to dry after last Sunday's rain. She tuck it home to clean off the gravy. After she had worked on it with lye-soap, sand, an' one remedy or another, she hung it up on the fence o' the cow-lot, an' the calf got at it an' chawed the tail of it an' drug it about over the ground. Lucy res cued it, an' give it another scrubbin', an' when I found it this mornin' it was lyin' on the bench in the back porch, an' the house cat an' her kittens was sunnin' the'rselves on it. I set in, then, to bresh an' clean, an' what thar is left o' my Sunday-go-tomeetin' is plumb full o' fleas."
" Me 'n George '11 have to chip in an' buy you an other, Christmas," Jim Garden said, in his fine voice. " Our teacher's got to look decent, ef any does. Me 'n George was jest a-talkin' when you come in. We didn't know but you mought make another trip off somers one o' these days, an' ef the superintendent was to put us in a new class we'd be ketched up
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with. The theology you've 1'arnt us, Uncle Ab, would turn the rest o' this school crazy;"
"I'll be with you-uns awhile longer, anyway,'* Abner smiled; "but it's well to be on the safe side an' not let our little talks git us into trouble. Do either of you-uns know what lesson the rest of 'em is on fer to-day?"
Leftwich shook his head, but Jim Garden answer ed: "I think it's that tale about the feller in the olden time that tuck his boy up in the woods to bar becue him over a slow fire, to show the Lord how faithful he was. It seems while the old chap was lightin' his brush-heap, a billy-goat got tangled in the briars, an' the boy tuk a notion he wanted the goat boys is that away to-day an' so the boy set in to beggin' his daddy to "
"Oh, come off!" interposed Leftwich. "I come here to listen to Uncle Abner; when you get the floor you hold it all day."
"I was jest a-wonderin'," said Abner, pulling thoughtfully at his beard and half closing his eyes " I was jest a-wonderin' as I come on, an' was thinkin' over what I mought talk to you-uns about this mornin'. I was a-wonderin' ef, after all, I'd railly done you boys any good."
"You've certainly showed me some new light," declared Leftwich. "An' I'm here to tell you, Un cle Ab, that it's been a big comfort to find another man, an' a man knowed to be sensible an' a thinker
to find him lookin' at the question as I did." " Well, I reckon I was sorter forced to take up this
class," Abner said, a little sheepishly. "You two had heard me spout my views down at the store, an'
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you both caught on, an', ef you will let me say it without offence, it seemed to me you was both sorter takin' it to extremes. You got so you wouldn't put yore heads inside of a church, an' was a-talkin' the new thought at sech a rate that you was ruinin' yoreselves bodaciously. George, yore trade was a-leavin' you high an' dry; yore customers wouldn't buy goods from an infidel; an' nobody that had any respect fer his religion would let Jim, here, make a pair o' shoes fer 'em. So I thought maybe these Bible lessons would do us good all round sorter widen and broad en; but I can't say I've got any rale benefit out of 'em."
" It's been a comfort to me," said Garden, " to feel that I know more 'an some o' these gillies that swal low every dose that's give to 'em from any jack-leg preacher that comes along. I don't want no mossback to do my thinkin' fer me."
"It's a great, great question," said Abner, evasive ly. "I'm older 'n you fellers, an' I tell you the more I study on these lines the less I know an' the less genuine satisfaction I git. Say what you please, boys, reason as you will, debate an' argue, an' prove an' disprove till you are black in the face, an' you won't have the speritual content that's built a fire in mighty nigh every face in this room. Them sort's got some'n' to cling to; but all three of us is gropin' in a dark cave. Reason tells us thar ort to be a hole some'r's to git out at, but we cayn't see it we don't know it's thar leastwise, we don't know whar it is. Them ancient fellers that got up that Garden o' Eden tale was jest tryin' to inculcate some livin' truth, I reckon. All my life I've wondered what
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they meant by Adam an' Eve bein' told they must n' eat o' the tree of the Knowledge o' Good an' Evil, an' I've come to the conclusion that them old writers found the'rselves right whar I am to-day, and whar you-uns are. We've ate o' the forbidden fruit, an' are turned out o' house an' home. The rest o' this community are in the Garden o' Eden. Them faces back thar may look sorter flat to you-uns; them heads may seem to slope back a little too much fer the best human architecture, an' the'r eyes may set so close together that they kin see through a key hole \vith both at once, but them folks are still in the Garden o' Eden."
"That may be so," Leftwich advanced, with a frown, as he scratched the bald part of his head, " but we hain't fenced in. We kin ramble, Uncle Ab, an' climb an' see an' wonder, an' worship the Maker of it all. By gum! it seems to me sometimes that, ef I am lost in the end, it will be some satisfaction to know I sunk with my eyes open."
"Sh!" Abner said, suddenly, "the preacher's cornin' in at the door. He's got a powerful habit o' settin' down nigh us. We don't want to git in any con troversy with him. Is thar a Bible on that bench, Jim?"
The shoemaker found one "without a cover under his feet, and, wiping it on the tail of his linen coat, he handed it over to Daniel. Abner opened it, thrust his index-finger into it at random, and held it con spicuously on his knee. "By gum!" he ejaculated, "he's headed fer this corner. Ef he pushes us too fer, George, we'll switch 'irn off an' finish in the back end o' yore store after dinner."
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The preacher, the Rev. Mr. Hardcastle, who was approaching, was a tall, spare-made man of middle age. He wore a broadcloth frock-coat, a white neck tie, and black trousers, and carried in one hand a big Bible and a hymn-book; in the other hand he swung a battered silk-hat. He bent slightly forward as he came up the aisle. He was smooth-shaven and sal low ; his dark eyes were keen and piercing. He nod ded and smiled to Abner and his class, and then sat down on the bench in front of them.
"What's the lesson this morning?" he asked, care lessly, as he put down his books and his hat and be gan to wipe his perspiring brow with his big handker chief.
" We hain't follerin' the regular program," answer ed Abner, raising the Bible to the back of the bench and suggestively holding it there for a moment, while the faces of Leftwich and Garden became set in a sort of indefinable anxiety as they eyed their general with half-open mouths. "We jest sorter dip here an' thar,' Brother Hardcastle," Abner finished, awk wardly. " Sometimes one question arises, then an other, an' so on."
"Um! I see." The preacher cleared his throat loudly. "That hain't a bad idea, Brother Daniel; tastes differ, an' what is food fer the general run, children as well as old, may not be exactly what you three are athirst for. What topic are you on this morning?"
"Well, y ou see" Abner appealed to the anxious eyes of his mute supporters, but they extended noth ing for him to lean on "you see, Brother Hard castle ''

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" Oh, I just mean what general text or Biblical subject have you up fer discussion?" broke in the preacher.
Abner was silent a moment longer. Then it was as if the merry, unconquerable twinkle in Jim Carden's eyes had fired a certain flammable quality with in him, for a rebellious smile struggled to his face. He tapped the bench with the Bible again ; this time he was himself.
"I've always thought, Brother Hardcastle," he said, " that that thar Biblical injunction not to let yore left hand know what yore right is a-doin' has a heap in it. That text kin be applied most anywhar a body chooses to "
He was interrupted by a sudden burst of spon taneous laughter, partly subdued by the blackened hand that Garden had pressed over his mouth, and then the shoemaker sat growing redder and redder under the inquiring gaze of the preacher.
"What under the sun's wrong -with you?" Abner asked, to hide his own amusement.
"I got to thinkin' about some'n' that happened t'other day in town," fibbed Garden, in hot em barrassment. "A feller in my business runs across a heap o' funny things."
"Urn!" grunted the preacher, who had heard of Garden's sceptical tendency and disliked him ac cordingly. "This is hardly the time an' place fer merriment, Mr. Garden. But, Brother Daniel, you've got a good theme there. I've preached on it time and agin. It is, I may say, the very key-note o' good, Simon-pure religion."
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came and called the preacher across the room, and Abner made a wry face at his class.
"That was a close shave," he said. "We must be on the lookout. Some o' these fellers will git on to us one o' these days, and we'll have to hold our meetin's some'r's else. What was I talkin' about? That feller knocked ever' idea out o' my head."
"You was takin' a ruther fresh tack fer a man o' yore convictions," replied Leftwich "that is, ef I'm any judge. Here I've been feelin' purty good over the new light you've give me sence I've been in this class, an' now all of a sudden you switch off by sayin' that, after all, these moss-backs has got the advan tage. I'm here to tell you I'd ruther be a free man, an' think like the Lord made me think, than to be full to the neck with all the bosh other folks believe nowadays."
"I didn't finish what I started to say, George," Abner made haste to reply. " I was only sorter leadin' up to a p'int. Now, it's true that "we've cut loose from the general mass, so to speak; but we are in some danger o' not findin' what we're lookin' fer. A man naturally don't want his eyesight obscured, an' I've yet to meet a cut-loose thinker that kin say pos itive what the outcome will be. I've made it my business to ax all I ever met who would own up to the'r convictions, an' they are all, like us, blind folks, gropin' in darkness. What we-uns must do is to tie fast to the star o' hope, an' sorter build up on our faith in the goodness o' God."
So you think we may slide into a sort of haven o' rest, after all?" ventured Garden.
"That's what we ort to hope fer," was the old
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man's half-evasive reply, after a moment's pause. "Our imaginations ort to help us out. Jim, you've got a supply o' that, an' George has enough to do him in a pinch. After all, have you-uns ever thought that the chief difference betwixt an ortho dox man an' a free-thinker is simply that the free thinker has imagination an' t'other don't know what sech a thing is? Now, fer be it from me to underrate the sacred book o' books; but, boys, grand as it is, parts of it, at least, was writ by men who didn't have much imagination. I grant you St. John had enough when he was writin' about what he seed on that island, when the very sky was full o' candlesticks an' rantin' bull yearlin's. He seed one red dragon wipe all the stars out o' the heavens, an' pitch 'em in a pile on the earth; but right thar, ef I may be allowed to call the most imaginative writer among the ancients to taw, I'm goin' to say that St. John's imagination wasn't up to the pres ent scientific age. A man with imagination in this day an' time ud actually turn St. John inside out. Instead o' sayin' that the stars o' the universe could be lashed about like flies on a hoss's tail in August, he says the entire globe we reside on don't amount to a grain o' sand on the shores o' some big stars that railly are in the business."
"Go it, Uncle Ab!" chuckled Garden; "now you are talkin' reason."
" The sacred book is full o' places whar the writers show they lack that particular gift," Abner went on, with a nod and a pleased smile at the speaker. "Now, here's another instance, for example: ef Bill Snodgrass, back thar, was to come in here some
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day with endorsements showin' that he'd actually been to the north pole, an' any of us three was em ployed to write about it fer one o' the Darley papers, what would be the fust thing we'd want to know?"
The class was silent. They were wondering what their teacher could be driving at.
"I'm axin' you," Abner insisted. "Boys, what would be the main thing you'd ax 'im?"
"Knowin' Bill like I do," said Leftwich, "an' with his name on my books at the store as long as it has been, I'd ax 'im ef he'd run across any money up thar."
Abner smiled. "I hain't jokin'," he said. "We'd all ax Bill what the pole was like, how the climate was, an' what sort o' inhabitants thar was, ef thar was any, an' ten thousand other questions. Now, thar was a man mentioned in the New Testament by the name o' Lazarus. Boys, he come back from an existence that never was even imagined. He come back from death an' all death means; he'd been away three whole days an' nights; he was dead ef any man ever was, an' yet the writer that described his return never recorded that any human soul that witnessed his resurrection cared to ax 'im whar he'd been or what he'd experienced. The feller that writ about it actually put in all the little things about what Lazarus wore at the time the Great Man performed the act, but he let the subject rest right thar. The eternal problem was as impor tant then as it is now. It was the one question every mortal wanted answered the question as to what lay behind the veil, beyond the storms o' soul an' body. Lazarus could 'a' answered it, but nobody
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give 'im a chance. He lived along like the rest after that, but the Bible -writers never mentioned that he was a man o' any particular note. Jest let that rankle in yore minds a mimite. The only feller that ever did cross the vast chasm an' come back to live amongst mortals didn't in that day and time amount to a hill o' beans as a citizen or a maker o' history."
"It jest proves one thing to me," said Jim Carden, vindictively, as he looked over the church "it jest proves to me that no sech thing ever "
"It don't make no difference "what it proves," broke in Abner, quickly. "We needn't go in to that, Jim. You're a great feller to cut an' slash whar the "whip hain't needed. I was jest showin' that the ancient writers didn't have any too much imagination. Thar's the danger o' our little talks they lead the Lord only knows whar. The main thing for us to do is to keep up our faith in the good in all things an' be charitable an' unselfish boys, that's the main thing. Love yore neighbor all you kin an' be unselfish."
"I don't know about bein' unselfish." Garden was tugging at his mustache. "That's been talked ever since time begun, Uncle Ab, but you never seed a railroad or a steamship line built by an unself ish man. You never seed a great invention made by a man who was trying to keep the poor from starvin'. You never seed a great book \vritten or a lastin' picture painted by a man that didn't do it fust to please hisse'f an' other folks afterwards. You never seed a great general that wouldn 't see husbands and fathers killed like tadpoles in a driedup mud-puddle to win his battle an' wear the glory
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of it. No, Uncle Ab, you've got to go a step furder 'n that. I don't advise any man to be selfish, but in a roundabout way it seems to produce good, an' I sometimes think selfishness was put here for a wise purpose."
The little, cast-iron bell in the cupola on the roof creaked on its axis and rang. The hour appro priated to Sunday-school was over. There was a general rising and exodus. Children were laughing and talking aloud. There was to be an intermis sion of ten minutes before the morning sermon. Abner and his followers went out among the horses and vehicles under the trees, walking a little away from the other groups and clusters of men, women, and children.
"I tell you I hain't goin' back to preachin'," Leftwich said, firmly. " Hardcastle puts me to sleep an' then throws it up to me afterwards. I cayn't listen to his long-winded baby talks."
"I don't -want to go, nuther," Garden put in. " This line o' thinkin' under you, Uncle Ab, has sp'iled me fer the regular mush-an'-milk diet. I gag over ever'thing Hardcastle holds out."
Abner hesitated. His mild glance was on the green fields across the mountain - road that wound in and out among the trees till it lost itself on the rugged heights above. " I sorter feel like playin' hookey myself," he admitted. "I stretched a trotline across the river below the mill-dam last night, an' I "was jest a-wonderin' ef I'd ketched any fish."
"That's a good idea," said Leftwich, eagerly, as he wiped a yawn from his face. "Let's go down thar. I've got some tackle an' a gourd o' bait hid
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at the dam. We kin fish an' talk an' enjoy life. What you-all say?"
" It wouldn't do fer us all to go in a bunch," Abner gave in, with evident willingness. "You two walk on down by the store like yo're goin' to attend to some'n', an' I'll exchange a word or two with Sister Hardcastle, an' jine you by a short cut through Eric Vaughn's orchard. But ef you git thar before I do, boys, don't you dare tetch that trot-line. I'm the only man who knows how to handle that thing properly." He stroked a smile out of the wrinkles about his mouth and added: " I don't know as I'm an advocate o' men usin' this day o' days like you fellers propose, but a man ud be a mighty unmerciful Christian that ud let live fish dangle on hooks from now till Monday."

VIII
SHE house Eric Vaughn had built to , gratify his whim was really the most > elaborate and modern residence in the I town. Unlike the earlier houses which 5 lined the most popular street, it stood by itself in spacious grounds on a little rise on the edge of the place. The grass of the terraced lawn was well cared for, and there was an abundance of fine trees and well-arranged beds of flowers and plants which Darley had never known before. One evening, about the middle of July, Eric was lounging in his smoking-room awaiting the arrival of Carlton Blathwait, whose coming had been an nounced by a telegram that afternoon. Adjoining the entrance hall, a well-rugged, amply furnished square space, which could be used as a receptionroom, was a double parlor, the opposite ends of which were ornamented with gilt-framed pier-glasses reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Here, also, were a grand piano and other musical instruments. Eric had several times treated his Darley friends to musicales, at which men and women of high standing in their professions had played and sung when they had "off nights" and were passing through from Atlanta to Chattanooga. Hearing the wheels of a cab on the gravelled drive,
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Eric went to the veranda just as his visitor was alighting at the steps.
" Had your supper, old man?" he asked, as Blathwait grasped his hand and shook it.
"Yes, thanks, at the Johnston House," answered Blathwait, who was about thirty-five years of age, of good height, and muscular figure. He was smoothshaven, had a clear blue eye, and a frank, cheerful voice, and in every way had the clean-cut look and manner of the successful man of the "world that he "was.
"Will you go inside or sit out here?" Eric asked. "It's very warm to-night."
" I rather fancy the looks of that hammock," Blathwait said, and he tossed his hat onto a near-by window-sill and sat down in the hammock. " By George! you are comfortable here," he went on, as Eric drew up a rustic seat and sat down.
"Yes, I like it myself, somewhat," Eric an swered.
"I've got a confession to make," Blathwait laughed. "I'm getting so that I don't feel really at home anywhere else; it's the next thing to being married to have everything you "want like this. See here, Vaughn, I'd like to own at least a part of this thing with the privilege of adding a picture here or a set of books or piece of bronze there. I'm great on ornamental knick-knacks."
"You already own all of it, old man," answered Eric, with a smile.
"That was neatly said," laughed Blathwait; "but I mean business. I'm in a trading mood to-night. I heard you say 'once exactly what the outfit had
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cost up to date, and I've got half that much money burning a hole in my pocket."
Eric stared through the half darkness; it was plain that Blathwait was making him a bona-fide proposi tion of partnership in an affair that had already proven a white elephant on his hands. A neatly dressed colored boy came out with a smoking-stand. The young men took cigars, lighted them by the match the boy held for them, and were silent till he
had gone. "I don't want to sell," said Eric, firmly. "But I want to buy; I insist on it!" Blathwait
leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. There was silence. The waiter appeared again
with a decanter and glasses. "Scotch?" Eric asked. Blathwait declined, and Eric motioned the ser
vant away. " I said I wanted to buy half, but I'd gladly take
it all, old man. I'll take it off your hands at the price you paid, or any advance you see fit to put on it. Property like this is increasing in value, you know. The whole South is looking up. One of these days this little mountain town "
"Who's been talking to you about my affairs, Blathwait?" Eric's voice was thick, subdued, and inclined to huskiness. " Don't beat the devil round the bush."
The young capitalist looked down; he flicked the ashes from his cigar with the tip of his little finger. He hesitated for a moment, and then he said, reso lutely :
"To be frank, Vaughn, I heard indirectly the

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other day that you had put a mortgage on your plantation to raise some necessary funds."

"Well, what's that to do with this property?"

" I heard you tried first to sell this. If you could

have sold this you would not have had to borrow

money, and your father wouldn't have got on to

your affairs."

"I see you know all about me," Eric said, with a

sad smile.

"You can't keep anything in a small place like

this," Blathwait said. " But I don't like the way

you have treated me in the matter, Vaughn. I have

told you a dozen times that I have money lying

about in banks money that is not earning a cent,

and for you to go to strangers and "

" I absolutely refuse to mix friendship with busi

ness they don't blend," Eric answered,with warmth.

"Let's drop the matter. I mean it, Blathwait; I

will not use one cent of your money. You make it

easily. I ought to do the same, but I don't I

haven't. We part company, my friend, if you begin

that again."

"All right." Blathwait smoked rapidly. "All

right, my boy, you know best; but it's reported that

your father's going to disinherit you cut you off

without a penny because of this damned transac

tion if "

a

transaction

that

need

never

have

got

out

"Let's talk of something else," said Eric. "God knows I appreciate your offer, but I simply cannot accept it."
" You do not feel like telling me what you needed that money for so suddenly?"
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"I cannot tell you that, my friend." "All right." Blathwait aimed at one of the white wooden columns that supported the roof of the ve randa, and threw his cigar. It struck, causing a spangle of sparks against the dark background of the low-hanging branches of a water oak. " All right, then, I'll take a whiskey-and-soda." He walked moodily into the smoking - room. Through the blinds Eric saw him go to the sideboard, fill a glass, and stand with it poised thoughtfully. Eric could see the deep frown on the firm, handsome face. Blathwait drank and came back to the hammock. "Look here, Vaughn," he said, presently, "I doubt if you know what it was that drew me to you so closely when we met in Savannah last fall. It was, first of all, what you told me about your suf ferings here in this place during your boyhood after the war how you were constantly humiliated by the fact that your father's politics were so com pletely at variance with your surroundings. I think I understand your father's type. He's a hard man on the very ones he ought to be kindest to. I should like to back you up in your endeavor to turn over a new leaf, so to speak, but you won't have it that way, and so I'll have to shut up. I've found you a rare sort of chap, Vaughn, and I've been very proud of your friendship. I know all sorts of men, from the highest to the lowest, but I have been in timate with few." "I'm well aware of that," Eric said, "and I ap preciate it. We'll get along all right, Blathwait, if only you won't try to mix friendship with business." "There was another thing that drew me to you,"
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the capitalist went on. "Constant men are as rare as inconstant women, and something I discovered about you once roused my admiration. You have never opened your heart fully to me; but one night in Mobile, during the last Mardi Gras, when we had gone to our rooms at the hotel after that day of wild dissipation, you let me see down into your heart. We had both been drinking "
"You had not," denied Eric. "Don't underrate yourself to keep me company; you were perfectly sober."
"Well, no matter." Blathwait yielded the point. " But you were in a talkative mood more so than you had ever been before. You told me you had been in love once in your life, several years ago, and that the memory of your young sweetheart had never left you. I think you said she died, and "
Eric rose suddenly. Blathwait paused, eying him curiously as he stood looking down the slope at the widely scattered street-lights.
" I don't like to talk of that misfortune of mine, Blathwait," he said, softly. "I did not know what I "was saying that night in Mobile."
"Pardon me, old man." Blathwait stood up and laid his hand gently on Eric's arm. " I am not press ing you for an explanation. I was only going to say that your words that night gave the lie to all the contrary assertions made against you charges that you are fickle as the wind and that you have little regard for "women's honor. It showed me what you really are; it made me believe in you, and tied me to you in the strongest friendship I ever knew."
"My friendship for you is just as strong," said

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Eric, "and some da}^ I shall tell you all about that affair. I can't now, but I shall some day." He was looking down into the little town. In the cen tre of the closest group of houses, looming up above the trees, he saw the slate roofs of the court-house and the jail where Si Warren was confined.
Blathwait seemed to be under the spell that in fluenced his friend; he rose and mutely held out his hand, which Eric took in a warm clasp. The moon was rising, and, as was his duty on all clear nights, a negro man on horseback was riding round turning out the street-lights.

IX
2T was Saturday, the busiest day of the ) week. Eric Vaughn had been down } to a grain warehouse at the end of the 5 main street to order some supplies sent j to his plantation, and was on his way back, walking slowly, and now and then pausing to chat with certain countrymen of his acquaintance. On one of the street corners, in a vacant lot, where the public was at liberty to leave wagons, hitch horses, and even build camp-fires, was a steam merrygo-round with its scarred and battered wooden ani mals, its one-tuned mechanical organ, drums, and bells, shouting manager, and laughing children. On another corner a negro medicine-man, with an open valise containing his "Electric Pain Killer," was holding an audience by an exhibition of ventrilo quism and the antics of a loose-jawed automaton, and a local application of his '' cure'' to any suffer ing by-stander. While these things were at their height a tall coun tryman near the age of forty, clean-shaven and with long, yellow hair falling on his broad shoulders, bor rowed a dry-goods box from one of the stores and rolled it along the sidewalk to a place nearly oppo site Eric's office, and there boldly mounted it, heavily pounding his thick-heeled shoe on the box to test
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its strength. Then he stood erect, took off his hat, looked up at the bright sunlight, and stroked back his hair with a rather delicate though browned hand. Just then he recognized a man in the gather ing crowd whom he knew, and he nodded and laugh ed impulsively. "Watch me, Luke," he said, with a cordial smile. "I'll give it to 'em, blast the'r dirty souls!" He stroked back his hair again and wiped his mouth with a red handkerchief.
"Come here, you scalawags!" he shouted, in a clear, musical voice that rose high above the general din. "Come listen to me, you lazy hill-billies, you yaps, you sneakin' interlopers; come listen to the word of God from a man that ain't afeard to give it to you without sweetenin'. You all know who I am. You all know Jack Bantram; ef you don't you've heard of 'im!"
Eric paused on the sidewalk at the foot of the stairs leading up to his office. He had known the speaker before, but had not seen him for several years.
"Oh, I know this town from A to izzard," Bantram went on. " I used to live here. See that little shanty next door to the nigger barber-shop. Right thar I baked pies open-top jim dandies, too, with brown, juicy bars a-criss-crossin' on 'em, an' cooked the best taters an' possum this town ever stuck a tooth in. I was a baker an' restaurant-keeper then. I'm servin" the Lord Jesus Christ now, thank God! an' like the job. I made money hand over fist them days. It was come-easy-go-easy. I was workin' fer hell an' damnation, pilin' up filthy coin to weight me down an' keep me from flyin' in the life
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to come. I had a old sock full of it in every crack in my shack. I hit the booze; I used dope till my customers had to kick me in the stomach to make me wait on 'em. But one day a new light broke over me. If you-uns don't know what that light is you'd better find out. A little spindle-legged preacher was runnin' a tent meetin' up nigh the park, an' he come in my place after a hard day's work. It was the fust time a preacher ever had been to see me without some business. Gentlemen, who do you think he fetched in with 'im? He fetch ed in to my humble shack the Lord Jesus Christ, an' introduced 'Im to me. I shet the front door, an' me 'n the preacher went back to my room an' read an' prayed mighty nigh all that night it wasn't night-time to me it was the fust broad daylight I'd ever seed. It was the dawn o' my new life. I sold out my shebang, put the money in my pocket, an' tuck up the work o' leadin' souls to salvation. I heard that folks in the mountains didn't git enough preachin', an' I started out as a off-Sunday filler-in wharever they would give me the use of a pulpit. My money didn't last long. I scattered it broadcast right and left wharever it was needed. I never axed fer a dime in my life, an' I never went without bed or grub. Three men in this crowd has already axed me to the'r houses. I'll sleep on the grass o' the park ef it's warm enough, under the million eyes o' heaven.
"Oh, I know you all, you misguided hypocrits and blind dolts!" he cried, raising his voice higher and waving his hands over the increasing throng. "See, fellers, they are a-leavin' that fake medicine
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coon an' headin' this way! Thar hain't no medi cine wuth a hill o' beans except the oil o' life poured on by Jesus an' rubbed in with resolution o' the spirit. Here they come in a trot! Thar comes little, short-legged Jim Garden. They say he's an infidel; but I don't believe thar ever was one that sucked God's pure air an' sunlight in to a pair o' healthy lungs. If Jim is one, he's a consumptive. Come on, Jim, I'm talkin' about you, but I don't mean no harm. If you fool with me, I'll make you pay that old bill you run -when I was in the bakery business, an' never had religion enough to squar off." (There was a laugh at Garden's expense, who had paused on the edge of the crowd, and stood smiling agreeably.)
" Stick to 'em, Jack!" he called out, boldly. " This town is a-needin' you; it's on a high-road to perdi tion all-night poker-games, dance-halls, huggin'matches, an' a short-skirt opery-house run by two deacons in the church! Sock it to 'em; more of us will be religious ef you'll give us a clean town to be it in."
Bantram laughed impulsively. He had caught Eric Vaughn's eye, and he nodded and smiled.
"Hello, Eric!" he laughed. "You never expected to see old Jack at this sort o' game, did you? Gen tlemen" (as Eric stood flushed and embarrassed by this unexpected allusion), "all jokes aside, that's a good-hearted fellow. I wish thar was more in yore town like 'im. I knowed 'im "when he wasn't kneehigh to a duck, when he fetched his stolen nickels to my shop to buy custard-pies. Lord bless you, all good boys steal nickels from home folks! I'm servin' the Lord in my maturity, an' yet, when I was
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between ten and twelve I used to take a dollar from my folks an' go for its wuth in sugar an' come back with ninety cents wuth o' sugar an' a ten-cent bag o' marbles. To his dyin' day my old daddy accused every merchant in town o' givin' short weight, an' was as nigh the mark then as the average man in judgin' humanity. Don't go off, Eric; I don't mean any harm; it's my way; I hit 'em all. You are all right; but you're in bad company right now. Bill Throgmartin, thar, next to you, is a hard nut. He don't go to meetin' any more; he's layin' up riches on earth instead o' heaven. Bill, that bank o' yore'n will bust some o' these days. You may keep it full o' dollars, but as fer as you are concerned it '11 bust to flinders when the clods are throwed on you; then you'll wish you'd invested in the right sort o' se curities.
There was a loud laugh at the expense of the bank er, who smilingly disappeared in his place of business. For a moment the speaker was silent. A negro was passing with a pail of water, and Bantram had sig nalled to him. The negro held up a full dipper, and the preacher drank copiously, smiling broadly on his hearers as he wiped his mouth and dried his hand on his trousers, \vith deliberate upward and down ward strokes.
" Money won't buy Throgmartin any wings, will it, Jack?" piped up the keen voice of Jim Garden.
" No, nor yore glib tongue won't git you in at the golden gate, nuther," was Jack's retort, which was followed by a big laugh and the disappearance of the little shoemaker into a hardware-store near at hand.
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The crowd increased; wagons were driven up and stopped, that the men, women, and children seated in them might hear and profit, for the word of God from the humblest of lips was respected by moun tain people. They could smile and laugh at a joke on such an occasion, but their care-worn faces always lapsed into seriousness when the speaker touched upon what they regarded as vital truth. Jim Garden came out of the store, a ready smile on his small face, and met Abner Daniel on the outskirts of the crowd. The old man was sitting on the tongue of a new har vesting-machine placed in the street as an advertise ment. He was chewing tobacco, his long hands in his trousers pockets, and listening attentively.
" Hello, Uncle Ab !" cried Garden ; " Jack's a-rakin' over the dry bones o' this town, ain't he? He's goin' to build a fire in the middle o' the street an' burn up the refuse in a minute."
Abner nodded agreeably and smiled. '' Looky here, Jim," he said, in an undertone. "You keep out o' this, do you hear me? This hain't no time an' place fer you to shoot off yore mouth."
"Well, somehow I jest had to give old Trogmartin that bliff about the wings," said Garden, in a tone of self-defence. " He's the rottenest churchmember I ever run across."
"Well, you stay out of it, I say!" Daniel insisted. "Thar's a half a dozen people in this lay-out that knows yo're in my Sunday - school class. I don't want to see you makin' yorese'f so infernal con spicuous. The witness - stand is the only place to tell all the truth, an' then a body 'd better use judg ment. Didn't you hear Jack say folks said you

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was an infidel? Fust thing you know he'll be trapsin' all over Christendom tellin' about our trio o' corruption doin' business at wholesale under the Almighty's own roof. That thar class o' mine is a secret order. It hain't got but three members. The rest o' this community hain't ready for the counter sign. I hain't exactly made up my mind that you are yit you are a-havin' too much all-fired fun out o' them that hain't on our wagon. Religion hain't a thing to have fun over it's serious business; it's the thing a man stakes his all on, hit or miss, sing or sizzle. Listen to Jack; that yarn he's tellin' will sorter suit yore case; I've heard 'im git it off before. I don't know but seein' you jest now made 'im think of it."
'' Thar was a smart Alec of a feller from Little Dogtrot over in the mountains," Jack was saying, eloquently. "You know whar that is, at the foot o' Shaday Mountain. I knowed 'im. He left his good, old, God-servin' mammy an' went West. She thought he was the entire thing in human flesh; she believed ever' dratted word he told her. Well, Billy come back home, an' one Sunday, when she was gittin' ready fer meetin', as usual, he begun to tell 'er what he'd 1'arnt away out West. He said he'd met mill ions o' smart men-thinkers, men that turned the world upside down with the'r influence an' money an' brains, an' he said one an' all had told 'im the Bible wasn't the Word o' God. That old woman listened, an' her son an' the devil together upset 'er entirely. She didn't go to meetin' that day, but set thar in 'er cabin an' listened to Billy spout his wisdom. Next Sunday he laughed 'er out o' goin' to meetin' ag'in,
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an' the next, an' the next, till folks begun to wonder what had got into 'er. Then she tuck sick abed. A doctor come a-hustlin' an' said she was done fer. She jest had an hour or two to live. The meetin' folks gathered around 'er you all know how good mountain Christians gather to speed a flyin' soul that's breakin' its earthly chains. The preacher come an' read to 'er, an' they all got down an' pray ed an' sung, an' then the preacher said: ' Sister, are you ready to go?' but she didn't say nothin'. He axed 'er ag'in, an' still she didn't say nothin'; but them that was thar said her face was workin' awful. She kept lookin' at Billy at the foot o' the bed, but he didn't have a thing to offer. 'Sister,' said the preacher, 'don't you believe yo're redeemed?' An' them that was thar said she give one or two gasps, an', with 'er eyes on 'er son, she said: ' Billy says the Bible hain't true!' an' with them words she breathed 'er last. Brothers an' sisters, Billy knowed it all! Billy had found out that the Word that had eased the death-beds o' millions an' billions was a drat ted lie, an' he was thar to let folks know he knowed the truth. He's a believer to-day, thank the Lord! an' it was seein' his old mammy swept away in agony that converted 'im."
"That's a dang good yarn fer his business," said Jim Garden, with a dry smile, to Abner, "when Jack had finished it.
"Thar's a sight o' common-sense in it," was Dan iel's answer. " Dry up ; I want to hear what the feller has to say. He's a born speaker. I kin listen to you any time."
"Yore town's full o' human sufferin' an' misery,"
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Jack was saying. " Knowin' what the Lord would do if He was here in the flesh, I always seek out the unfortunate an' the unhappy. The most miser able, low-fallen man I ever met an' I've met thou sands is in yore jail waitin' to meet his God. I went to see 'im yesterday. Yore whole community is divided betwixt love an' hate over 'im. Some yell kill 'im, an' others say spare 'im, an' amongst 'em they are nghtin' an' prayin', singin' an' cussin' over 'im. He knowed I didn't come to see 'im just out o' curiosity, an' he listened to me like a famished soul that stands tied, with the lickin' flames o' hell about 'im. I read to 'im, an' prayed through the bars, him on one side, in his little, nasty pen, an' me on t'other, before a window whar I could see God's sunlight an' God's blue sky. Warren struggled with the flesh, but I finally fetched 'im to his knees; he was seein' the great, unvarnished truth that's writ so simple that a wayfarin' man though a fool need not err tharin. I seed 'is old, gray, tangled head a-bobbin' up an' down, an' I thought I had 'im. Gentlemen, I thought I was handin' God the most precious gift the State could offer.
" 'Don't you feel all right now, Si Warren?' says I. ' Don't you believe Jesus Christ died to save you, an' that he kin an' will come to yore aid ef you only look to 'im in faith?' an' the old, shaky man nodded his head, an', says he, 'I feel better, Jack; I feel some better!' Then says I, 'Don't you love the whole world? Cayn't you forgive everybody that's harmed you? But, brothers an' sisters, right thar me 'n' Si Warren parted company. A change come over 'im. The sunshine glow o' God's sperit
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went out o' his sunk eyes an' dingy face. He swore a oath, a low, deliberate oath, an' then, lookin' straight at me through them iron bars, he said, 'Thar's one man I'll never forgive as long as my soul's in my body.' And thar, gentlemen, he lost his chance. He was leanin' right over Christ's extended hand, an' turned from it with a storm o' hate an' revenge in his heart. Somebody, five year ago, he said, had done 'im dirt. A man in the upper class that had money an' power had harm ed him in a way he could never overlook. He didn't give no names; I didn't press 'im fer any. But he let that one thing which he said tuck place years ago stand betwixt 'im an' the salvation of his eter nal soul."

X
|RIC VAUGHN, his face set in tense \ emotion, turned into the stairway bel hind him and went up to his office. ] It seemed to him that the preacher l naci kept his eye steadily on him through all that he had said. He sat down at his desk and stared fixedly before him. Through the open \vindow he heard Jack relating some amusing story, and the loud laughter that rose from the crowd. He did not know how long he sat there, busy with thoughts of the past, but "was roused to consciousness by a heavy tread on the stairs. Jack Bantram stood in the doorway, wiping his perspir ing brow with his handkerchief. "Eric, old boy," he said, with a pleasant laugh, " you run off too soon. You missed the best part o' my talk. I always wind up with a dab at the Bap tists an' the'r all-water trip to glory, an' a corkin' good tale about the Catholic who was starvin' to death one fast-day surrounded by all kinds o' meat, but not a sign of a fish, an' was finally persuaded by a Jew drummer to eat frogs' legs as a compromise. But no jokin', Eric; I hain't always at my best, an' ef I kin jest pick out some decent-lookin' person in a crowd that will seem interested in what I'm sayin', it backs me up powerful. Somehow, I seed by yore
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eye that you was listenin', an' wasn't disposed to poke fun, like some o' the others, an' I let myse'f out. By gum! you can't fool old Jack my tale about Si Warren sorter tetched yore feelin's. I seed that in yore face, an' the sudden way you turned off. I wanted you to stay an' hear me out, but that was a compliment."
Eric had risen, and he gave the preacher a chair. "I don't suppose I look at the subject exactly as you do, Jack," he said, "but I confess I am always interested in a man who believes firmly that he has solved the eternal problem and is as soul-free and happy over it as you are."
" Happy, Eric, my boy? I say happy! I tell you / have found the beginning of eternal life. What more can a man ask? The only pain I have is in meetin' promisin' young men like you that will riot see the truth an' reap the benefit. Eric, you'd pick up a dirty half-dollar in the road, but you refuse God's flower o' life. They say you are a high - roller don't care fer man, God, nur devil, but I've got you spotted. I seed down into yore soul once, when you thought nobody was lookin', an' I know that it's made o' the right material.
" I was away up in North Carolina not long ago, at a country store, settin' around between sermons with a gang o' drummers. They was jest talkin', I know, to draw me out, but I was tired an' wouldn't argue. They was one an' all agreein' that thar was no sech thing in this life as an unselfish act every man had his own nest to feather, an' the like. Thar was a seedy-lookin' feller workin' about the store, cleanin' show - cases an' breshin' goods,
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an' lie was a-listenin'. All at once he come for ward, sorter flustered, and chipped in. Blamed ef he wasn't about to cry. His eyes got full an' his voice kind o' \vabbled. He looked like a con sumptive. He said he wanted to deny that state ment ; he said he used to think that away, too, but had got his eyes opened. Then he told about havin' a job here at Darley in the cotton - mill, an' that he got lint in his lungs an' was down at death's door. The doctor told him he'd have to git up in the moun tains o' North Carolina or he'd die. He said he didn't have a cent, an' was thinkin' about drowndin' hisse'f in the creek, when he met you one day an' you axed 'im what was the matter, an' that you hadn't no sooner 'n heard what the trouble was than you hauled out a twenty-dollar bill an' give it to 'im, tellin' 'im that ef that wasn't enough more would be comin'. By gum! that testimony, along with the feller's looks, closed the mouth o' that gang. He made a purty speech, too. He said down here at Darley that some folks said you was a bad egg, that you played poker an' th'owed money right an' left, an' was on a high-road to ruin; but the feller said ef you wasn't in heaven when he died an' went thar he'd ask permission to inhale a few fumes "weak as his lungs was while he went below to pay you a visit."
Eric had flushed during this recital. " I remember the man's case," he remarked. " It was pitiful. Yes, Jack, I like to see a fellow have convictions, and stand by them as you do. I sup pose your religion has often kept you out of evil ways and habits."

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" It has kept me out of the clutches of the devil," was the crisp reply; "it's done that fer me, Eric
Vaughn." "Surely you don't go so far as that, Jack? You
don't really believe in an actual personal devil?" "Don't I? Huh! Did you ever read about our
Saviour bein' led up into a high mountain an' tempt ed? Well, I was led up in one myself. I don't tell this on the box, but I often do at my ' men-only' meetiii's, whar I kin close the doors an' keep women an' young boys out. I was once stoppin' at the cabin of a mountaineer. He had a wife, some little fryin'-size childern, an' a beautiful young daughter, the purtiest trick I ever laid my eyes on. The man an' his "wife liked my prayin' an readin' an' talkin', an' as it was ten miles to a meetin'-house, an' the'r team was tired on Sundays, they begged me to stay with 'em jest as long as I could. I had business fer the Master all over them mountains. I knowed that, an' yet I hung about thar fer ten days. It was (Eric, me 'n' you are jest two men in the flesh, an' may as well speak open-like; I kin git at my point better that away). As I started to say, it wasn't religion that helt me thar in that cabin it was that thar beautiful, yaller-haired, blue-eyed daughter jest buddin' into "womanhood, an' a wavery, half-scared some'n' in 'er eyes whenever she looked at me. She'd never seed many men, livin' close at home like she was, an' she sorter looked on me as a god. A preacher kin sometimes fool hisse'f into thinkin' he's actually holdin' up a corner o' the Lord's throne, when he's railly totin' a firebrand fer the devil. I was in that fix. Satan was lookin' at
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me through a pair o' blue eyes, an' he never got a stronger focus on a man in his life. God fergive me, Eric, but night an' mornin', when we knelt do\vn in that cabin with the big, cool cracks in the floor an' walls right when I was prayin' my loudest an' best, an' somehow feelin' it, too, I'd put out my hand like Hell's benediction on the livin' glory o' that innocent child's hair. I hardly ever tell this without fust prayin'. The very recollec tion of it makes me doubt my final salvation. I might git that way ag'in. While I prayed, praise to God an' his angels went out at my mouth an' the spell of damnation trickled down my arm, through my fingers, to that unsuspectin' child. At night \vhile I was settin' by the fire in that little cir cle, tellin' my experiences, I'd re'ch out an' take that little hand an' hold it. Oh, I can't tell half of it! I used to pet 'er an' make love to 'er on the sly, an' say things I oughtn't to. It was the last day I spent thar that the devil led me up into the mountain. After breakfast Celia -that was 'er name tuck a bucket an' went up thar alone to pick huckleberries. The devil told me to come on an' not be a fool. We went side by side, me an' him. An' when we got to the top he offered me all the kingdoms o' the earth an' everything in it. She was thar, standin' in the full sunlight all alone. The devil had a holt o' me. I was like a nutterin' bird under the charm of a snake. Christ was as fur off as the furdest cloud in the blue sky overhead. Celia seed me a-comin', an' stood still an' looked quar she looked, somehow, like she knowed she was lost an' didn't care, so long as.I helt the reins. Me 'n' her stood talkin' a minute.
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Hell never made a blacker man 'n I was, beca'se I knowed better. Jest then I heard a voice out o' the heavens. It wasn't an actual voice even in the olden times the voices men heard was from the'r own insides an' not out. The voice said, ' Jack, what are you about?' It was my Saviour. I never heard my old daddy speak plainer 'n He did. My trial was over. The devil left me. Me 'n' the girl got down an' prayed, an' then I told 'er I was goin' off an' wouldn't see 'er no more. She cried, an' I told 'er to be a good girl all her life, an' marry some good man, an' be a good "woman like 'er mammy, an' she promised me she would. I told 'er that the best men had evil bottled up in 'em, an' that ef she ever seed it surge up in a man's eye, or ever felt it tremblin' in a man's hand, to steer clear o' him, an' never let no man tetch 'er, or talk sweet things to 'er un less the feller meant to marry 'er an' love 'er right. I told 'er I was goin' back to the cabin to roll up my things a shirt an' underclothes an' Bible an' that I'd not be thar when she come home."
" Did you ever see her again?" Eric asked, eagerly, when the preacher had concluded.
"Six years after that day," answered Jack, "I passed through thar ag'in. She was a settled woman. She'd married a nice farmer an' had two o' the pret tiest childern I ever laid eyes on. It was at meetin' one Sunday. I was billed to preach in the little shack of a church the members had built with the'r own hands on the side of a mountain. Somebody got up an' objected to me on the score that I wasn't regular ordained ur edu^^^^'^Mf^SLS a big dis pute, a frightful wran;g|e*,- an/ wh'at/ ,i%b. In the

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midst of it Celia begun to cry. Nobody couldn't stop 'er, an' nobody knowed what to make of it; but she jest set thar an' helt to her husband's hand, an' hugged 'er childern, an' sobbed an' sobbed. Some of 'em axed 'er what ailed 'er. But all she would say -was that I 'was a good man an' she couldn't stand to see me ill-treated. Then her husband got up, a great, big, strappin', raw-boned feller as red as a beet in the face. He shucked off his coat, an' step ped over the altar-railin' an' pounded the pulpit till he sloshed the water out o' the pitcher an' knocked the Bible off'n its perch. He'd paid his dues, he said; his oxen had dragged the sills the house stood on from a mill seven miles down the valley. He'd hauled the roof-boards with his team, an' at odd times had nailed two-thirds of 'em on, when he could 'a' been savin' his hay. I "was an old friend o' his wife's family, an' ef I didn't preach in that house that day thar'd be a blaze on that mountain that ud be seed ten miles off. He "was a dare-devil or was before he "was converted an' he had his way; thar'd 'a' been blood offered up on that altar ef they hadn't give in. You kin bet I give 'em the'r money's wuth. I seemed inspired; my talk rolled from me like a prairie fire."
When Bantram came down the stairs a moment later he found Abner Daniel waiting for him.
'' I was sorter interested in what you said about Si Warren," the old man remarked. "The thing's badly divided, as you say, but I'm sorter on Warren's side. I was wonderin', Jack, ef you thought he was tellin' the truth about actin' in self-defence."
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The preacher stroked his chin reflectively and

drew his mouth open \vith a little click.

"Thar's two times in his life when a feller '11 tell

a straight tale: fust, when's he's on his death-bed,

an' next when he's tryin' to induce the spirit o' the

Lord to descend on 'im. Right when Warren was

in his biggest struggle he told me he'd shot Bu-

ford in self-defence an' that Abe Wilson had seed it."

" Piles an' piles o' cash money's been paid out to

detectives to locate Wilson," said Abner, his sharp

eyes fastened on the preacher's, "but it was all

throwed away."

"So I've heard so I've heard," said Jack.

"I was jest a-wonderin'," said Abner, " ef you

hadn't, in yore meanderin's here an' thar ef you

hadn't run across some hint as to whar Wilson rail-

ly is."

"Well, I'll tell you this much, Mr. Daniel " Ban-

tram stroked his chin again slowly "I hain't no

Catholic priest, an' folks don't come to me to con

fess exactly, but I'll tell you that they talk a little

more free 'fore me than they do 'fore ordinary folks,

an' I've picked up some few things on the wing.

Abe Wilson used to be hand an' glove with the Joe

Clegg set o' moonshiners in the mountains, an' I

wouldn't be surprised ef they know whar he's at."

"You think they mought," said the old man, his

eyes twinkling eagerly.

"An' furdermore," said Jack, " I'm of the opinion

that Abe's afeard he'll be implicated in that counter-

feitin' gang that was sent up from Cove Creek last

court. Folks don't think Abe had sense enough to

help make the money, but some of 'em believe he

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bought pewter fer 'em an' fetched supplies to the gang, an' that he's scared half out o' his hide. I say that's what some thinks."
Abner put his hand in his pocket and drew out several sheets of legal-cap paper pinned together at the top. The first sheet was filled with writing and pencilled signatures.
"What you got thar?" Bantram asked, as he took it.
"It's a petition to the Governor, Jack. I want yore fist on it. Some of us are a-goin' to beg clem ency an' a stay o' execution fer a few weeks till we kin make one more effort to find Wilson an' fetch 'im to court."
" Don't look like yo're havin' big luck," said Jack, as he put the paper against the brick wall behind him and scrawled his name -with a stub of a pencil.
"No; Warren is the most unpopular man alive," said Abner, " an' Buford had friends by the hundred. Some o' the best citizens actually cuss when they are axed to sign. I'm afeard it will push us to send in a creditable paper. What I want is the business men's names, but most of 'em happen to be on t'other side. Warren maybe a low order of a man, but he's the fust feller I ever knowed a community to fight over, good or bad."
"Thar must be some good in the feller," Jack ob served. " Some substantial men seem to pity 'im. While I was talkin' on the box jest now about 'im, I ketched sight o' Eric Vaughn's face, an' ef ever I seed a human countenance full o' love fer a fallen creature it was thar with God's dew on it. I like Eric, Mr. Daniel. I like 'im as well as any man I
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ever run across; he's the sort I like to rub agin a feller with a heart o' love an' a backbone full o' hellfire. I used to contend that the best men was them that never knowed what sin was, but I was wide o' the mark. Men that was never immersed in sin are jest good babies t'other sort are full-grown, scarred, an' wounded fighters in the Almighty's ranks. A man is never so nigh God's throne as -when he's tempted all the time an' resistin' all the time; right then the Lord's got a rope tied to 'im, an' is a-jerkin'."
Bantram noticed a man in the uniform of a town marshal rolling the box he had stood upon out of the street. "You let that alone," he called out. "You let that pulpit alone. I'm goin' to hold ser vice on it ag'in after a while."
"It's in the way o' the wagons, Jack," the officer said, in a tone of apology.
"Well, you let it stay whar it is," said Bantram. '' Folks can drive around a church as little as that un is."
"All right," answered the man, "I'll let it stay; but it's agin the ordinance."

XI
JIHEY were at dinner the mid-day meal \ --in the big dining-room in the rear of ) Vaughn's house. The company was ( composed of Vaughn, his wife, Abner j Daniel, and Jefferson Bowman, the Tennessee promoter of the colored people's interests. A negro woman, Aunt Amanda, and her daughter Minnie, a slip of a yellow girl, passed in and out at the swinging door that opened into the kitchen, bringing the steaming food hot from the big cookingstove. It was a warm day, and the door behind Bowman and Vaughn was open. Seated opposite them, Ab ner could look over their shoulders into the back yard. Vines bearing ripening tomatoes and some fig-trees heavy with fruit "were in sight. At the door step some chickens and ducks had expectantly and noisily gathered to catch the fragments of bread that Vaughn, knowing their presence, now and then toss ed to them. Over the long table with its white cloth and the darkened and dented silverware an heirloom of Mrs. Vaughn's family swung a cumbersome flyfan. It was made of a soap-box covered with glossy pink cambric and ornamented with dangling strips of tissue-paper of various colors. This instrument
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of war against flies had a cord attached to it, and was drawn back and forth by a mite of a colored boy, who sat high up on the stairway and peered through the banisters, and now and then, from sheer monot ony of occupation, dropped to sleep. He was Aunt Amanda's son. She had once thrashed him sound ly for allowing the fly-fan to collide "with the massive head of her master when he was suddenly rising from the table.
Vaughn and Bowman were talking, as usual, of their scheme, and Abner, with a quizzical look about his eyes, and Mrs. Vaughn, with an expression of deep pain on her gentle old face, were reluctantly listening.
"The site we've selected is by all odds the best in town," Bowman observed. " Of course, we must naturally expect opposition from the white people in the neighborhood, but it's the best spot for a public building in town, an' you are fortunate to al ready own it. I have an idea, Mr. Vaughn, that we could not have bought it for our purpose at any price. You've got a hard-headed lot here in north Georgia, Mr. Daniel," he finished, with an aggressive smile at Abner.
"Yes, thar's very few saft heads amongst 'em, I believe," said Abner, dryly.
" Oh, I see your joke," Bowman said, with a flush, as he glanced at Mrs. Vaughn, who "was trying to subdue a look of gratification over Abner's retort. " But surely, Mr. Daniel," the teacher went on, his resentment keyed high and taut, "you a man as broad and liberal as you are you are not going to argue that one set of human beings have the ex-
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elusive right to occupy any portion of the face of God's earth, keeping out and holding down another set simply because they happen to have darker skins."
"I don't know about that," said Abner; "but I do believe, ef any makin' over has to be done, that it will be a sight easier to make over a few colored people that never are troublesome, until some per son gits to devilin' 'em an' incitin' 'em to disorder, than to make over a race that never has been made over by nobody nur never will. Niggers kin be made over some, ur they never would 'a' been fetched agin the'r will so fur from home; but the puore white blood never was led about an' dictated to, nur it never will be."
"Oh, I see what you are driving at," said Bow man, a malicious look on his sallow, stiff face.
" An' these "white folks in these mountains is ahead o' any folks fer pluck an' sturdiness that I ever run across," Abner went on. "Some rich Yankees that was spendin' the summer at Catoosa Springs nigh here once found that out. They'd tuck notice o' the pore log-huts some o' the whites was livin' in, long above Rocky Face, an' they got up a big plan amongst 'em. It was to be a sorter surprise-party on a gigantic scale. They sent to town fer a lot o' carpenters, an' to the saw-mill fer timber, an' they soon had half a dozen cabins built accordin' to the latest dicker up North. Thar wasn't a crack in 'em. They had all sorts of contrivances an' things fer com fort brick chimneys instead o' the log an' mud ones, an' glass winders instead o' the old wood shut ters. Then the Yankees went round amongst the
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shabbiest o' the mountain people an' axed '.em to move in, free o' charge. It would 'a' tickled you to see that gang o' scrubs marchin' about lookin' at the new houses, the last one a-laughin' an' a-sniggerin'. Not one would stir a peg without all went, an' it was a reg'lar procession. They was on to the Yankees, too. They seed they was looked on as a lot o' hopeless beggars, an' narry one \vould accept not one. Old Mrs. Dingley actually turned up 'er nose at her present, an' said, ' Lawsy me, a tight box like this ud sweat me to death, ef I didn't die from the smell o' them new pine planks!' Old Billy Malone looked about the cabin they had picked out fer him, an' grinned as he noticed the high door. He said he'd stooped so often goin' in his cabin to go to bed that he was afeard ef he walked in straight he'd lay straight when he was asleep, an' that al ways give 'im the nightmare. That 1'arnt them Yankees a thing or two. The last I seed o' them cabins, them mountain men was tearin' 'em down to git the plank to kiver the'r potato - beds with."
"Showed the'r lack o' sense, too," grunted old Vaughn. "Them's the sort I had to contend with when the war was a-comin' on, an' I tried to make 'em see whar it ud end. I talked to 'em tell my tongue was sore, an' instead o' appreciatin' what I said they told me ef I didn't dry up they'd take me out an' string me up fer a traitor. They seed me disposin' o' my slaves an' turnin' Confed' money into gold, an' that made 'em mad. They said acts o' that kind was throwin' cold \vater on a cause that was holy. Them's the sort o' folks that said slavery
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was a divine ordinance, an' preached it in the pul pits till I had to quit goin' to meetin'."
"Ah! now you are getting as good as you sent, Mr. Daniel," laughed the teacher, and he put down his napkin and rubbed his thin hands together in high glee. "There's nothing I like so well as to see two men on the same soil fight out a vital question like that."
Daniel smiled good-naturedly. "I've knowed Henry Vaughn since he was a boy in school, an' I never knowed 'im to take a side on any question that he couldn't hold all to hisse'f. In a way, that's to be admired that's the white in 'im, but it's the white run to seed. I reckon I'm the only Confed erate veteran that is plumb friendly with Henry. He's agin all the rest, an' they are all agin him. When I git good an' ready I'm goin' to bust that nigger college all to flinders, an' I'll do it with jest half a dozen words."
"Ah, you don't say!" exclaimed Bowman, sneeringly.
"Why, yes," answered Abrier, with a significant glance at Mrs. Vaughn and then a smile at the Tennesseean; "why, I'll jest show Henry that you an' him's agreed on the school, an' that you railly want it built, an' he'll fly the track as shore as preachin'. I tell you, Henry Vaughn never will do anything any body else wants 'im to do. He hain't a-goin' to build no nigger college, nohow, an' endow it with money that ort to go to one o' the likeliest boys I ever knowed a boy that's been a little 'wild, like Henry was hisse'f, but a boy that's got the biggest heart an' finest soul I ever run across. Henry
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Vatighn hain't a-goin' to do that jest to gratify a momentary spite, while he's bein' agged on to it by somebody with a big, dull axe to grind."
Vaughn growled out some inaudible retort, and Bowman, quite startled, looked down at his knife and fork. It was as if he had not dreamed that such a forcible and even personal thrust could come from the good-natured, unassuming humorist oppo site him. It had touched Mrs. Vaughn the allusion to Eric's good qualities and she sat with twitch ing lips, making a visible effort at self-control.
"Will you have another cup of coffee, Mr. Bow man?" she asked, to cover her emotion. Half ab sently the teacher declined, and, the meal being over, Mrs. Vaughn excused herself and left the room, her starched skirts rustling on the smooth floor. The men rose and went out on the back veranda. Bow man was looking half conciliatoriry at Daniel when Abner laughed out suddenly as if over some past memory:
"Speaking about makin' these mountain folks over," he said, with a bland and not unfriendly look into the teacher's half-shrinking face, "I recol lect a Yankee moved down from Maine an' settled at a little talc mine he'd bought over at the foot o' Rocky Ridge, above Eric's plantation. He hired a number o' niggers to work fer 'im, an' one of 'em was a sort o' no - account, vile - lookin' rawboned black devil that had come thar with a powerful bad record. The Yankee was advised not to hire 'im, but he seed his money's wuth in the whelp an' tuck 'im. The nigger was heard to make some unseemly remarks about the rights o'
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niggers to intermarry "with the white .race, an' all the white women in that part o' the country was afeard to go to the spring fer water or to meetin' to worship the Lord. The Yankee was advised to send 'im off, but he "wouldn't, an' one day while they was blastin' rock a piece big enough an' heavy enough struck the nigger in the head an' killed 'im. He had a white woman's picture in his pocket an' two bull-dog revolvers round his waist under his coat. He'd been a menace to the country, an' ' the whole section breathed easier when they heard o' his end."
"Well, Mr. Daniel," Bowman put in, eagerly, " I'm going to grant all you say about that particular negro's character, but won't you agree with me that his kind are the sort of human beings to be educated and lifted out of their low, bestial condition?"
"Yes, ef you'll do it in a place with an iron fence around it," said Daniel, " an' not in the front parlor. God knows I ain't agin nigger education. I set up many a night 1'arnin' 'em to read an' write 'fore they was freed. Well, as I was goin' on to say, the Yan kee talc man decided to bury the feller, an' him an' his two sons laid 'im away, with due ceremony, in the white folk's buryin'-ground, bless you! an' went back home. The next mornin' 'bout daybreak the Yankee's wife happened to go out fer a bucket o' water, and she seed a coffin on the ground betwixt the well an' the kitchen door. It wasn't empty, an' was an unpleasant sight so early in the morn in', an' she set in to screamin' at sech a rate that her old man an' two boys come a-hustlin'. They found a letter nailed on the box to the effect that
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ef the body o' that unfortunate deceased was not put whar it belonged with due despatch a hole ud be dug in the nigger grave-yard wide enough to hold the present incumbent an' three o' his per sonal friends, who was lookin' fer a permanent abidin' - place. It didn't take that family long to discover that they was tryin' to make water run up-hill in dictatin' to mountain folks, an' they sent fer a colored preacher an' had 'im do what ort to 'a' been done at fust."
"And do you think those mountain people acted right in as serious a matter as the burial of a human being, Mr. Daniel?" Bowman asked, warmly.
Abner looked down and stroked his chin for a moment, then he answered: " Accordin' to the latest scientific accounts, Mr. Bowman, it tuck God Al mighty several million years to make them moun tain men jest like they are, an' it looks like plumb foolishness to me to see jest one ordinary man tryin' to unmake 'em in twenty-five minutes by the clock. I've always believed the niggers will work out the'r own salvation, like the whites had to do when they started, an' I hain't never yit seed the race advance a step under the direction o' politicians an' carpet baggers that don't give a dern fer anything but its vote, or" and Abner looked steadily at Vaughn's unruffled face "the benefit o' some fund set aside fer the so-called purpose o' educatin' the race. It's all in a tangle here in the South, an' the white man is lookin' out fer his own breed, workin' like hell to git another start, an' lettin' the idle North worry 'bout t'other end o' the business."
Bowman laughed uneasily. " I can see plainly,

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Mr. Vaughn," he said, "that our farmer friend is flatly against our educational project."
Vaughn shrugged his shoulders and growled. " He's been talkin' to my wife an' my rascally son," he fumed. "I've said I'm goin' to build an' endow that institution to put my savin's whar they'll do good an' I'll do it. Do you hear me, Ab Daniel I'll do it! I don't intend to give that boy a chance to throw my savin's into hell all in a wad."
Bowman had some difficulty in subduing a chuc kle in his throat. His eyes flashed triumphantly as they rested on Abner's impassive face.
"Mr. Vaughn has been a persecuted man all his life," he said, grandiloquently. "He stood by his convictions here in the South, when few other men would have done it, and he will stand by his convic tions when he lies down to die. He strikes me as being that sort of man."
"You hain't goin' to give the pore white childern in these mountains any o' that big pie, are you, Henry?" Abner asked, completely ignoring the teacher's remark.
"You-uns kin build schools fer 'em," snorted Vaughn " you-uns, that told 'em to fight agin the Union an' play smash with all the'r interests you-uns that wouldn't listen to common-sense, an* led 'em to battle, with the'r toy guns an' puny out fit, agin the greatest nation on earth, with its finan cial backin' an' improved implements o' war."
"Them pore little mountain childern hain't got nothin' to do with what us Rebs did in all that ex citement," Abner said, mildly. "The South's got a black eye, an' nothin' hain't bein' done fer the
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puore white stock a-bloomin' here about us; but money in dead loads is a-porin' in from rich Yankees to help the niggers, so fast they hardly know whar to put it; an' now you, a man with oodlin's an' oodlin's o' pore blood kin, an' a man right here on the spot with yore eyes open, are a helpin' at the job a job, by hunkey! that hain't got no more human love in it than a ash-cake has sody. Listen to me! T'other day I seed the childern of a third cousin o' yore'n, on yore mammy's side, a-settin' in front of a pinepole cabin eatin' corn-bread an' sorghum molasses. They was in the'r shirt-tails, nothin' to clothe the'r legs but dirt an' warm weather. The last one look ed like you; they had yore long head, shaped like an egg, an' yore long body an' stubby legs. After they got through eatin' the'r dinner they went with the'r mammy an' daddy to school. They slid into a geography class twixt corn-rows, an' fell to cuttin' sprouts like the woods afire."
" Huh! you mean that trifliii' Bill Washburn's lay out?" said Vaughn, contemptuously.
" Triflin' enough to tote out five bleedin' comrades on a field o' battle when balls was a-flyin' so thick about 'im they almost clipped his ears off, "while you was lettin' a paid substitute do yore fightin'," said Abner. "But hold on! I hain't through yet," as Vaughn was tottering on the verge of a retort. " I passed that family an' come on to town, an' here down in the nigger quarter I seed a black wench with a litter o' young uns all dressed out in kneebritches an' starchy frocks a-settin' on the porch of a white-painted house. They'd jest got in from free school, an' was restin' up an' takin' life easy. Some-

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body on the inside o' the house was playin' a lively tune on a organ, an' the head o' the establishment, a big black buck, was a-leanin' over the side fence with a cigar in his mouth. That's the way things is a-driftin' amongst us like a dam broke loose. The white blood's too plucky to stay idle an' beg, an' it's workin' the fields in ignorance, while the lazy, goodfer-nothin' blacks are hangin' about the towns pickin' up scraps an' lettin' Northern money bore holes in the'r skulls an' ram in sums in arithmetic."
"Huh! that's jest one side of it," Vaughn said, and he turned back into the house.
Bowman "was scrutinizing Abner in studious sur prise over the warmth he had allowed himself to ex hibit.
" I feel, Mr. Daniel," he said, " that you are against this college I am going to erect."
"Oh no," Abner said, indifferently. "I don't care a red cent how many schools you build, but I'm agin anybody makin' Eric Vaughn an' his gentle old mammy put up one, jest to suit a man that comes along from God only knows whar to pick up -what cash he kin find lyin' around. Shucks! You won't find me mealy-mouthed about anything! I'm agin you, Bowman, dead agin you!"
Bowman had paled slightly. It was evident that he "was very angry and trying not to show it.
"We shall see, Mr. Daniel," he said, his eyes flash ing, his hands trembling "we shall see what the outcome will be. 7 '
"I'll let you know one thing," said Abner, coolly. "I know you are a-workin' agin a young friend o' mine slanderin' his character, an' doin' yore level
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best to make his daddy hate 'im, an' ef I don't beat you at yore dirty game I'll never show myself in decent white society ag'in."
"All right, Mr. Daniel, we shall see," retorted Bowman, and he went down the steps and into the yard. "We shall see," he repeated, defiantly, as he glanced back over his shoulder and strode sul lenly on.

XII
|T was towards the last of July. Ab?; ner Daniel was satisfied, -with his crops, I if he was not fully so with other rnatj ters which more or less concerned him. __ _ _ _ ] His corn was as high as his head, with big, strong, succulent stalks, dark, heavy blades, and full tassels His cotton gave fine promise of a weighty yield, and the condition of his pet tobaccopatch behind the barn bade fair to excite the envy of his neighbors. He was walking down below his boundary fence, a zigzag, rail affair half hidden in blackberry vines, in the dense wood that stretched away from the moun tain like a huge covering that had slidden from the barren, rocky crest above. There was nothing in his mind beyond the enjoyment of the cool shade that defied the pelting heat of the afternoon sun, when suddenly he heard the sound of a washer-wom an's paddle, and, turning in the direction from whence it came, he saw an old woman beside a little brook bending over a crude bench near a steaming tub and iron pot. She was an aged creature, ill gowned and scantily shod. Over her thin, gray hair she had tied, in a cumbersome knot under her chin, a white cloth, after the manner of mountain laboring women.
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"I'm dyin' fer a smoke, Mrs. Dilworthy," Abner said, as she looked round. " I hain't got a sign of a match. I reckon I'll have to borrow a chunk o' yore fire."
" He'p yorese'f, Mr. Daniel," said the woman, in a piping though cordial voice.
Abner filled his half-burned brierwood pipe with tobacco, and applied the tip of a red chunk to it and began to smoke.
"Seed you pass day 'fore yesterday goin' to town with a load o' chickens," he remarked. "Did you make 'em fetch you a stiff price?"
"Them sold all right," said the woman, twisting a white cloth till it doubled into a loop and laying it on the bench by her tub. " They was the best fryin' size I ever raised. I stayed all day an' looked about good before I traded. I went to see Si War ren, Mr. Daniel." in'"uOph?," you seed Si, Mrs. Dilworthy; how's he hold-
The woman stood erect, folding her red hands in her apron. " I was never as sorry fer a human bein' in all my life," she made fervent answer. "That man's been bad as bad as they make 'em but my heart melted fer 'im yesterday. Ef I had my way, guilty or not guilty, I'd take the pore wreck out o' that hole. He's an altered man, Mr. Daniel. He hain't no longer defiant. As the time draws nigh he's gittin' low - sperited. While I was thar the sheriff come to tell 'im a piece o' news, an' sech news as it was! He came to tell 'im that they'd de cided not to have a private hangin' but a public one instead. My Lord! I thought Warren would drap.

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He stared at the sheriff with his "wide, bloodshot eyes, an' axed 'irn what the change was fer. The sheriff told 'im jest think of it! -that he'd lost so much flesh through his cough, long confinement, an' one thing or other, that the authorities "was afeard the gallows in the jail "wasn't high enough to break his neck, an' they'd have to have it out in the open. Warren set down on his cot an' quivered all over. He jest nodded, sorter confused, an' looked about helpless an' scared like a half - demented creature. Then he rolled up his pants leg an' showed me how thin he'd got, an' said, kind o' bitter-like,' They'd bet ter not have it out in the open air ef the day's windy, Mrs. Dilworthy, fer a good strong blast ud blow me away.' The sheriff offered to let 'im go down to a fur window and look at the spot they'd selected on the hill-side, but Warren jest shook his head an' said that one time, the fust an' last, would do him.
"When the sheriff left us," said Mrs. Dilworthy, taking her paddle and stirring and punching the clothes in the boiling pot, "Si broke down wuss 'an ever. He said he had done the deed in self-defence, an' that it would 'a' been established at the trial ef Abe Wilson hadn't fled the country. Then he begun to -worry about who put up all the money that's been spent on the case."
"He mentioned that to you?" said Abner, his eyes fixed on the woman's visage.
"Yes, an' when he got started on that line he didn't know whar to stop. Part o' the time he'd be mad about it an' the rest o' the time it ud sorter af fect his feelin's. He said he sometimes thought it
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was somebody that wanted to do 'im a good turn. He didn't know."
The woman went to work at her tub, and silence fell for a moment. Abner broke the pause.
"Thar's one thing concernin' old Si that jest me 'n' you know about, Mrs. Dilworthy nobody but jest me 'n' you, as it happens. I've discovered that you are one woman that don't tell all you know."
" What's that, Mr. Daniel?" The old woman was looking straight at the farmer as he squatted before her, his pipe in both his hands.
"I'm about as good a friend as Eric Vaughn has, Mrs. Dilworthy."
"You say you are, Mr. Daniel!" The woman's face wore just a shadow of premonitory caution.
"Yes, an' he told me in confidence about how he loved old Si's young gal. It is the purtiest lovestory an' the saddest I ever heard from human lips, Mrs. Dilworthy; makes even an old, dry stick like me feel bad."
Mrs. Dilworthy sighed deeply. She pushed some rolls of damp clothing from one end of the washbench and sat down.
"It was the sweetest an' puorest I ever come across," she said. "It seems quar to be talkin' about this when I hain't mentioned it in so long. I reckon Eric told you about old Si's evil-minded suspicions?"
" Yes, he told me all that," said Daniel " all that, and how Si tuck 'er off, an' how she died without Eric ever seein' 'er ag'in."
" It was the most awful experience I ever had/*
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said the old woman. " When Warren come draggin' pore Marie across the fields, an' shoved 'er in the door o' his house more like a demon than a man, I run over thar to try to protect 'er. She fainted, an' while I was bringin' 'er to he told me whar an' how he'd found 'er, an' I'm afeard, fer a while, that I believed as he did. As soon as I could, though, I slipped off to Eric's farm to warn 'im not to meet Si, an' found 'im in a awful state o' mind. The pore boy ketched hold o' my hands an' cried, an' told me I jest had to believe Marie was a good girl, an' then he explained it he explained it plain enought fer me to see the truth, an' I felt better. I sorter thought, as time wore on, that things would come out straight betwixt 'em, but they never did. Eric come day after day beggin' me to help him out, an' I went over to Warren's an' tried, but, bless you, the gal herse'f was the mountain to climb. She was the proudest, most scornful creature I ever seed. Her daddy had opened 'er eyes to some'n' she never had dreamt of, an' ef she was in love with Eric, the awful charge agin 'er kept 'er from realizin' it. I never told Eric all she said; he wasn't in no condition to hear it; but she didn't have one word to say about him. She'd jest break into everything I'd say, beggin' me fer God's sake to show 'er some way to prove what Si charged was a lie. She come over to my house the evenin' 'fore he tuck 'er away. Lookin' me in the eye, she said: 'Mrs. Dilworthy, I'll tell you one thing, as shore as God's in heaven, an' that is ef my father don't take back what he's said, an' believe I'm a good, puore gal, an' that my mother was a good, puore woman, I'll leave 'im fer-
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ever. I won't live with anybody that thinks that away of me an' 'er.' "
"Good! good! God bless 'er memory!" Abner ex claimed. "She was a pore, uneducated gal, but she was a born lady, an' Eric Vaughn knowed it."
"She was the puorest, most undefiled mountain flower that ever growed," declared the old woman; "an' she was as proud of her honor as a queen. That's what makes me think that's what makes me sometimes wonder ef " Mrs. Dilworthy did not finish what she had started to say.
"After that come the news that she was dead," said Abner, solemnly.
"No, fust come a letter from Si about 'er bein* awfully sick, an' a few weeks later he come home. He sulked an' moped about his house, drunk half the time, an' seemed to avoid everybody that was passin'. I had my suspicions, an' I went over one night when he was in his stable an' axed 'im whar Marie was at. Then he told me she was dead, an' that he didn't never want me to mention 'er name to 'im any more."
" Huh, agin 'er even in the grave!" Abner grunted. "Well, he's gittin' his pay fer all he's done. No body could ax fer more than what's bein' put on him."
"I've got great respect fer Eric Vaughn, Mr. Daniel," Mrs. Dilworthy said, feelingly. "Fer a while after the pore gal's death I got mad ever' time I heard o' his scrapes an' reckless way o' livin'; but I now believe it was all caused by early disap pointment. A high sperit "will now an' then take sech a turn, an' God knows he had enough to
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bear. My eyes was opened yesterday by Eric hisse'f."
"You seed him, too?" said Abner, in surprise. "Yes, he seed me go to the jail, an' when I come out he was at the court-house waitin' fer me. He axed me into the tax - collector's office. It was empty at the time, an' me 'n' him set down an' had a talk. Mr. Daniel, they may say what they please about men's love not lastin'; but I believe Eric Vaughn loves that pore dead gal as much as ever he did. I could see it in his voice an' in his eye, an' in the big interest he tuck in her father. He was tryin' to devise some means o' comfortin' the old man. He told me to lie low, an' not let on to Si that he'd talked to me, an' then he give me some money to buy a few things Si needed, an' axed me to send 'em in my name. I didn't "want to do that, but he begged so hard I had to give in." "That's jest like Eric," said Abner, moisture gathering in his eyes. " Do you know what his talk made me think of?" suddenly blurted out the woman. "That night after I got back home an' laid down, I couldn't keep from thinkin, thinkin', thinkin'! I couldn't git a certain idea out o' my head to save my life. I'd heard all the gossip in the neighborhood about the big money that was bein' spent on Warren's case, in employin' expert help an' the like, bringin' wit nesses from the ends o' the world, hirin' detectives to s'arch fer Abe Wilson, an' the Lord only knows what else, an' all at once the thought come into my old head all at once, Mr. Daniel, I say, the thought come that maybe Eric Vaughn, that whole-souled
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sufferin' young man, was at the bottom of the entire

business, tryin' to save the daddy o' his dead sweet

heart from the gallows, an' it simply overpowered

me. I got up an' went to the door, an' set down in

the moonlight, an' cried an' prayed, an' begged the

Lord to let it be that awav. It was so purty, Mr.

Daniel, so sweet an' up-liftin'!"

With a startled expression, intermixed with cau

tion, Abner jerked his eyes from Mrs. Dilworthy's

rapt face and rose. He went to the fire and dipped

up a live coal in the bowl of his pipe.

"It's funny," he said, "how a body will some

times let the mind run on when it gits off the track.

I remember once when I'd been to camp-meetin' that

I laid awake imaginin' the Lord orderin' Gabriel to

toot his trumpet, an' "

" But I'm "

I

tell

you

I

hain't

no

fool,

Mr.

Daniel.

"You say you hain't, Mrs. Dilworthy?" Abner's face was still disturbed. " I I got to wonderin', as I laid thar, I say, Mrs. Dilworthy, what all that gang would do; whether the loudest shouters would be scared liter'ly to death, ur -whether "
"An' that hain't the only thing that popped into my head," broke in the woman, who had not heard a word of his fragile subterfuge.
"You say it -wasn't?" said Daniel, in no little re lief at what seemed a turn in the trend of her specu lations.
"No; you remember I told you Marie said, 'fore she went off with her daddy, that ef he didn't come round an' believe in 'er bein' a puore gal she'd up an' leave 'im fer good an' all."
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Abner started, and then he stood still, staring into the old woman's eager face. " I remember you you did say that, Mrs. Dilworthy."
'' Well,'' and the old woman placed her hands at her hips and stood firmly, facing him "well, when Si Warren got back home he was still of the same opinion regardin' 'er, an' is yet, fer all I know."
"You mean, Mrs. Dilworthy ? Good Lord, what do you you don't think ?"
"I don't know nothin'. I was jest a-wonderin', a-thinkin' that thar was a bare chance that Marie did go off an' leave 'im. Ef she did, it wasn't any more 'n natural fer 'im to want to account fer it, comin' back here, as he did, without her. An' as he'd already writ about her sickness, fer 'im to tell that she was dead an' buried would be the easiest an' most natural excuse to make."
"Good Lord, Mrs. Dilworthy!" Abner had never been thrown quite so completely off his balance.
"Well, I'm jest a-tellin' you what come into my head that night, Mr. Daniel. The Lord knows, I don't say thar's a grain o' truth in it."
"But you understand, Mrs. Dilworthy," Abner said, hesitatingly "you understand that ideas o' that sort 'won't do to put in a sufferin' young man's head. Ef I was you I'd not breathe a word o' that whar it could reach Eric Vaughn's ears. He's troubled enough already, without havin' to go through ''
"Mr. Daniel," the woman hurled at him sudden ly, "I reckon I'm not a plumb fool. A silly man mought stir up a thing o' that kind without proof to back it up, but no woman as old as I am outside o'
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the asylum would. Howsomever, I cayn't help hopin' that the pore gal may actually be alive, an' I'll bet ef she is she's growed into a good, useful wom an. She was the purtiest, brightest thing God ever made, anyway; an' had more common-sense than any gal o' sixteen I ever run across. She was as proud as Lucifer, too. She showed that by never 'lowin' Eric Vaughn to speak to 'er after her daddy's dirty suspicions reached 'er ears."
"Yes," Abner said, thoughtfully, "she was the right stuff, Mrs. Dilworthy. She had some'n' bound up in 'er that hain't often found in the highest in the land."

XIII
gARLTON BLATHWAIT was in Dan, dridge, a small town in Louisiana. He > had gone there to make arrangements > for the erection of a cotton - mill, of _ _J which he was to be the president and chief stockholder. He had finished his work for the day on the land selected for the site of the factory, and had gone to his hotel expecting to spend a dreary evening, as he had few acquaintances in the place, when he received an invitation from Captain Reed, an old soldier, the mayor of the town, to attend a reception at his home. The reception, the mayor's note explained, was given to General Winston and his wife and daughter, of New Orleans. On the following day there was to be an annual meeting of the Confederate veterans, and the general was to make the address of the day. Of course, Blathwait accepted. After supper at the hotel he inquired the way to the mayor's house, which "was situated on the most popular residence street in the town. He found it, an old-fashioned, two-story building, and its wide verandas brilliantly lighted. It stood in spacious grounds, and the lower branches of the water-oaks which bordered the walk from the steps to the gate were hung with Chinese lanterns. He found him-
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self very welcome, for many of the citizens were grateful for the new enterprise he was establishing in their midst, and his fame as a wealthy young man had preceded him. His host introduced him to young and old, and soon made him feel thoroughly at home. In the larger of the two connecting parlors he was presented to General Winston and his wife and daughter.
The old couple were typical, white-haired aristo crats of the South, but it was their daughter, a girl of perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, that claimed Blathwait's special admiration and riveted his attention. He had seen much of the world and its people, but he was sure that he had never met a more perfectly beautiful woman than she was. And it was not beauty of face and form alone, but there was something in her great, brown, intellectual eyes, in the high brow, over which her abundant golden hair was massed, that marked her as unusual. She was above medium height, inclined just enough to slenderness to be graceful, and she stood by her mother, as straight as an Indian princess.
"They tell me, Mr. Blathwait, that you, too, are a stranger here," she said, with a pretty, cordial smile, as he was presented.
"Yes," he answered, "I have come to put some of them to work weaving and spinning."
" I know," she said; " we go about the South con siderably, and I have been in some of the mills. The cotton industry is a good thing for the poor people who have no employment, but the pity of it is that it too often furnishes work only for weak wom en and little children, and not for the strong, able-
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bodied men. Why, at Melton, where we were last summer, I saw strong men who were actually living in idleness on the earnings of their wives and chil dren."
" I'm afraid that is sometimes the case," Blathwait admitted, almost abashed by her steady warmth and earnestness. "We are trying to meet that ticklish problem, but so far we haven't found a remedy. The different sections beg us for the mills, and we cannot build and equip them and run them at a profit with any other labor. The question really has two sides to it, Miss Winston."
Just then Mrs. Winston leaned forward, laying her white hand affectionately on her daughter's arm, and smiling.
"I want to warn you, Mr. Blathwait," she said, "not to pursue that theme any further; it is my daughter's hobby; there is no other subject which so thoroughly rouses her sympathies. She'll quar rel with you in a moment."
Blathwait laughed good-naturedly. "I'd like to convince Miss Winston," he said, "that we millowners are about as deep in the mud as the opera tors are in the mire. As it stands, we help them, in a time of need, and they help us."
"Please let him go on, mother," the girl said, ea gerly. "You were saying, Mr. Blathwait, that the question has two sides to it; would you mind giving the one which, according to mother, is not -my hobby."
Blathwait smiled at General Winston, who had turned to listen, a look of pride in his gentle, gray eyes as they rested on his daughter's animated face.
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" It would take a good deal of time to do the subject thorough justice," Blathwait answered, "but the fact is, that the poor white people here in the South are in such desperate straits to earn a living that the employment women and children can get under our factory roofs and in our well-warmed buildings is so much better than their ill-paid work in the fields, that they are fortunate to swap one for the other."
" But, admitting that," the girl fired at him, fear lessly, "think of the paltry wages paid them for close work from dawn to dark. The gloomy whistle at Melton used to wake me in the morning before it was light, and seemed to fasten their misery upon me as I lay in my comfortable bed and realized what they were rising to. You buy them, body and soul, for a few pennies, when the product of their hands, their eyes, and their brains enables you stock holders to live in luxury."
"We can't, at this stage of the game," said Blath wait "pay any more for labor than we do that is, and meet competition."
"Competition! that's it!" cried the girl. "Hun dreds of moneyed men are competing with one an other to grind the labor of women and children down to the very lowest mark in order that big divi dends may be declared. What a change there would be if all you manufacturers were to begin to compete with one another on raising wages and bettering the conditions of labor in the South!"
General Winston laughed long and heartily. "You might as well not answer that, Mr. Blath wait," he said, touching the girl's flushed cheek af-

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fectionately; "if you do she will ask you another question just as illogical. A learned man said to me the other day that it was a scientific fact that no woman can see reason in anything contrary to her own sympathies."
"That's because a "woman insists on what is right under all circumstances," Miss Winston said, with a smile. "A woman feels that she is a sufficient judge of right and wrong within herself, while you men shirk the responsibility by holding that what the majority do is right at all times. The majority of moneyed men are keeping the wages of women and children down, and that makes it right."
Captain Reed, who was an old soldier, and had only one arm, was bowing and uttering apologies for having to take Blathwait away to present him to some ladies in another room, and Blathwait excused himself.
'' We shall fight it out some other time, I hope,'' he said to Miss Winston as he turned away.
'' Pretty as red shoes and as bright as a new dol lar," Captain Reed remarked characteristically as they left the room. " Did you ever hear her speak?"
"Speak?" Blathwait ejaculated in surprise; "what do you mean?"
"Why, you see, the general is invited to address nearly all the veteran camps over the State when the badges of honor are presented once a year, and Miss Winston is always asked by the old soldiers to pin the badges on. She usually says something wonderfully original and appropriate. I heard her once. I'll swear I sat and cried like a baby. It was over at Dalkeith last summer. Do you want
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me to tell you about it? We can stop on the veranda a minute."
Blathwait was eager to hear what the captain had to say, for his interest in Miss Winston's unique personality was high. They found a deserted cor ner of the veranda and paused under the vines which climbed over the lattice-work.
'' The meeting was at the court-house in the centre of the square in the middle of the town," the old soldier began. "I was not a member of that par ticular camp, but I had friends there and they gave me a seat near the platform. When she came into the room with the old folks the house shook with cheers and rapping and stamping. They were all glad to greet the general, but it was the girl they worshipped. The old soldiers claim her as their own. It's that way everywhere. The general made his usual remarks, and a choir of college girls sang some of the old battle-songs, and the brass band out on the balcony played ' Dixie'; then it was her turn. I've got girls of my own, Blathwait, and I feel like rips for one when she has to stand up and sing or say any thing in public, and I felt nervous for Miss Winston, but my fears were without ground and my sym pathies wasted. As she went from her seat by her mother up the steps of the platform, she was as easy and graceful as if she'd been walking across a parlor floor. The thirty or forty old, dried-up, and scarred veterans were in a group on the left-hand side of the platform, and you would have thought they were made out of wood or stone, they sat so still and attentive. I've heard big men speakers in my time, but that girl's voice and way of talking affected

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me as I never was affected before or since. What she was saying1 seemed to be made up on the spot it suited the occasion too well to be otherwise. She spoke of the great struggle those men had been through, the loneliness of their misspent army life, the hardships, hunger, and lack of clothing, and anxiety about their wives, mothers, and children left at home in such unsettled times. While she talked she took up the old flag of the company a tattered, soiled rag -and held it in her arms like it was a baby she loved. I was ashamed of myself, but I cried like a child. It brought back so many things to me, you know and I wasn't alone. The entire bunch of veterans were sobbing like converts at a camp-meeting.''
"That must have been beautiful," Blathwait said, as the captain paused. " I can imagine how she would do it."
"After she finished her talk," Captain Reed con tinued, "she took up the basket of badges and pinned them on the lapels of the old soldiers as they answered the roll-call and came forward. Some of the poor old chaps were not well dressed, and they looked pitiful and embarrassed. One white-haired old man seemed to forget himself as she was fasten ing his badge on, and impulsively kissed her hand. Then he seemed to sort o' come to his senses, and he began to stammer and beg her pardon. You could have heard his shaky old voice in any part of the room. He got red all over, and turned to the audi ence and said that he knew he'd made a fool of himself, but that Miss Winston had made him think of his only daughter, who had come out on the
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porch of his home as he was leaving for war and pinned a flower on his coat. He said he had never seen her again; she died in '63, for lack of medical attention and proper food, and the news of her death had not reached him for nearly a year after wards.
" ' I ax yore pardon, miss,' he said to her again. 'As a general thing, I've got common-sense, but I'm plumb off now.'
"'Why, it doesn't matter, you dear old man,' I heard her say, with a sort of sob and tears in her eyes, and then she seemed to forget herself. She put her hand on his shoulders and bent down and kissed him on the forehead. ' For to-day, at least,' she said, 'I'll take your daughter's place; I know she was a good, nice girl.' "
"Beautiful, beautiful simply beautiful!" cried Blathwait.
"That's what it was," said Captain Reed. "It was the hit of the day. As that old man went back to his seat "wiping his eyes all the veterans threw up their hats and shouted at the top of their voices. My wife agrees with me that she's a genius. That little thing is only one of many acts that have made her popular. She is a great hand to advocate the rights of poor, suffering people, and, by-the-way, Blathwait, if you ever get to know the family as well as I do, you will understand the particular rea son for it."
"There is a reason for it, then?" Blathwait said, deeply interested.
"Yes, but" (Mrs. Reed "was approaching from the door) " I don't feel at liberty to discuss it. I
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am, in a way, somewhat in the confidence of the general and his wife."
I^ater in the evening Blathwait had an agreeable talk with General Winston. The old gentleman was interested in the cotton industry, and openly indi cated his willingness to make some investments un der Blathwait's guidance. In fact, they made an appointment to meet at the general's home in New Orleans a few weeks later.
As Blathwait was about to take his leave, Miss Winston approached her father to tell him that he was sitting up too late for the good of his health, and the general told her, laughingly, of what he and Blathwait intended to do and that she must stop decrying the methods with which such industries were conducted. "For," he added, "the money is, after all, to go to you, my child, and you must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg."
" We sha'n't fight when you come to New Orleans, anyway," the girl said to Blathwait; "it would not be treating you hospitably."
"I'll tell you what she will do," the old man said, as he rose, half supported by the girl's strong hand. " Her charity account is already big enough to break a bank, and if she discovers that we are getting any dividends out of cotton-mills she'll double it. But we'll hoodwink her, Mr. Blathwait. When you get to New Orleans, I'll propose a campaign that will knock her out, sharp as she is."
On his way back to his hotel, Blathwait found himself puzzling over Captain Reed's mysterious hint. He went to bed with it in his mind, and then finally threw it up in utter impatience.
136

XIV
1 was Saturday, three days before the S day set for the execution of Si Warren. \ Abner Daniel had been to Atlanta with | a petition to the Governor of the State, ______| pleading for a respite of a month, at least, so that another effort might be made by the defence to secure the witness upon whose testimony so much depended. But he found that gentleman out of town, and had to await his return. Only that morning had the Governor granted him a brief hear ing and looked over the list of names Abner had brought. He "would not interfere, he declared; the court had doubtless acted with fairness, and he could see no cause for a delay of the sentence; besides, he said, he missed the signatures to the appeal of many men of influence whom he knew personally in War ren's immediate neighborhood, and had just been reading marked copies of the Darley papers, loudly protesting against any Executive interference. "Why," he said, "with a cold smile, "these names, as well as I can judge, Mr. Daniel, come chiefly from Darley. Where are the names of the fellow's neigh bors, the people who best know his real character?" " Unfortunately, they are down on 'im, Govern or," Abner replied. "You see, they are a purty religious, meetin'-goin' set out at the Cove, an' Si
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never stuck his head in a church that I know of in his life; he was a drinkin' man, an' not of very much account in some ways, an' the folks out our way sort o' resent the disgrace he's fetched on the com munity. Ef it hadn't been fer that one thing, an* them Darley papers bein' so strong agin 'im, I'd 'a' had mighty nigh ever' name from that section."
"You've undertaken a rather unwise thing, Mr. Daniel," said the Governor, indicating the value of his time by pushing some notes he had pencilled on a paper towards his private secretary. "I'm sorry I can't interfere with the action of the judge and jury."
Abner felt that this was decisive, and rose to leave, his old slouch-hat clutched despondently in his hand.
"I'm goin' to meet mighty nigh ever' reliable man in our destrict at Shoal Creek meetin'-house to morrow mornin'," he said, anxiously. "Thar'll be a big turn-out to hear Tom P. Smith, the evangelist. I'm goin' to try to git a rousin' list o' names, an' ef I do I'll fetch 'em down to you Monday."
"You may find the people more indifferent than you think," Governor Whitehurst said, kindly. "I wish I could grant your plea, Mr. Daniel, but, as it stands, I am powerless."
"I'm goin' to try to git them names," Abner re peated, as he shook the Governor's hand and left. "Maybe, ef I could make a big showin' of interest, you'd give us another chance."
After arriving at Darley at dusk that evening, he went to the livery-stable and got his mare and started out to his farm. He was about a mile from home when he saw coming along the road towards
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him a man on a horse. It was old Uncle Lewis, the negro "who lived at Eric Vaughn's town house and attended to his garden and his horses.
"Why, hello, you old coon!" Abner cried out, cheerily, as he reined his mare in. " Whar on earth have you been?"
" Over to Marse Eric's plantation," replied the old negro, who was a giant of a man, tall, broad-shoul dered, and muscular, with a massive head and strongfeatured face. " Why, didn't you know he was dar, Marse Daniel?"
"Thar? what the devil's he doin' thar?" "I don't know what he went fer, suh; but he's been dar three days, an' all dat time he's been workin' harder 'n any corn-fiel' darky I ever seed. He's rented out his big, fine house in town an' ever' thing in it to Major Castlewell; dey say de major tuck it fer five years on a lease, an' paid a big price fer it. He 'lowed, he did, dat it was de onliest house in de town fitten fer his wife en young ladies to live in. He's runnin' de new railroad thoo, an' has got dead loads o' money. Anyways, Marse Eric closed de trade wid 'im an' moved out to de plantation de very next day." "The thunder he did!" exclaimed Abner. The two stared over their horses' necks at each other through the dim starlight, in silence. Presently the old negro leaned over till his big elbow was on the pommel of his saddle, and asked, abruptly: " Look here, Marse Daniel, you know Marse Eric purty well; what de name o' common-sense has he got ter do wid dis yer low white trash Warren dat dey gwine ter string up next Tuesday?"
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Abner started.
"What's Eric got to do with Warren? what's why, how do I know? I don't know what you mean, Lewis."
"You cayn't fool dis nigger," Lewis replied, shak ing his big, kinky head. " I got a little sense, suh. Marse Eric never acted dat way over white trash befo'. I's had my eye on 'im, Marse Daniel. I ain't asleep ever' time I lay still an' snore. Didn't I hear some o' de young mens say, de night dey all got together to lynch dat rapscallion, dat Marse Eric done begged an' argued 'em out'n it?"
" Well, that was only humanity, Lewis a a desire to uphold the law," Abner said, rather lamely. "You see, Eric's broad-minded; he believes in law an' order, an' protectin' the defenceless at all haz ards."
"Dat wasn't hit dat wasn't hit, bless yo' soul, Marse Daniel! dat wasn't hit! Besides, dat wasn't de onliest time you hear me? dat wasn't de onliest thing Marse Eric done. He's been talkin' an' talkin' agin dis hangin' tell all de white folks is wonderin' what's de matter wid his mind. When you went off to Atlanta wit' dat petition, Jim Quagmire, de Gazette editor, printed a whole string o' stuff about it, an' said dar wasn't nobody's name on de paper 'cep' blubberin' old women an' chil'ern an' one young man who wanted ter run fer office. You know dar was some talk o' puttin' Marse Eric up fer de Legislature agin a man Quagmire nominated. Dat was how de fight fust started, an' "
"Fight?" Abner broke in "what fight was that, Uncle Lewis? I've been away a week."
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"You didn't hear about Marse Eric an' dat triflin' bag o' wind? Huh, dat's been de talk er de whole county some ergin Marse Eric, an' some fer Quagmire. I seed it fum de jump. I was dar, an' ef dat man had harmed Marse Eric I'd 'a' sucked his blood. You hear me? I'd 'a' sucked 'im dry. He agged it on; Marse Eric was tryin' to keep down a row. Me 'n' him was at de post-office in de crowd waitin' fer de souf mail ter git open when Quagmire stepped up to Marse Eric an' said: ' An' you's tryin' to git 'em to turn dat damned rascal loose on de community. You's a purty come-off, now, ain't you?'
" Marse Eric got white clean all over his face, an' I never seed 'im so mad in my life; but I knowed he was doin' his level best to hold hisse'f in.
"' I jest believe Warren is innocent,' he said, sort o' low an' way down, in his throat, dough his eyes was flashing like lightnin'. ' I believe he killed Buford in self-defence.'
" Wid dat Jim Quagmire got madder 'n ever; he's as big a man as Marse Eric, an' dey was powerful well mated. Jim pushed some o' de folks out'n his way in de crowd an' shuck his finger right in Marse Eric's face. 'You don't believe it,' he said. 'You's a dirty liar!'
" Well, suh, I hain't never yit knowed my young boss to take a dare an' much less a lie an' I never seed sech a look on 'im, at de same time it seem to me he was still tryin' ter hold in.
"'I can't afifo'd to fight about dis, Quagmire,' he said, an' he turned an' "walked out'n de office. I was wid 'im, side by side. He seed me an' looked
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at me sort o' pitiful-like. ' You never knowed me to take a insult before, Lewis,' he said; 'but I des cayn't afford to fight on dis matter.'
"But it wasn't over, bless you! Dat Jim Quag mire was a-itchin' fer a scrimmage. He called out to Marse Eric when we had got clean across to de next corner at de shoe-store, an' told 'im he did ter hold on. Marse Eric stopped ter wait fer 'im, an' he come up wid a whole string er men.
"'I des want to add some'n' more to dat liar proposition,' Quagmire said, loud, an' frothin' at de mouf. 'You'll take anything sech men jinerally do. You's not only a liar, but a dirty coward in de bargain. When Warren is strung up we's goin' to brand you as a coward an' send you out o' town a-straddle of a fence-rail.'
" Marse Eric stood as straight as a pine saplin' an' looked at 'im face ter face. ' You've follered me up, Jim Quagmire,' he say, 'an' I hain't no mo'n human. Take dat, you damn puppy!' an' he landed a joedarter in dat man's jaw dat sounded like a stack o' plates fallin' to de floo', an' it knocked 'im to his knees. Quagmire riz an' was at 'im ag'in, when Marse Eric biffed 'im one mo' clean smash right 'twixt de peepers, an' he keeled over as limp as a rag. Quagmire come to in a minute, but he didn't make no motion at Marse Eric, an' Marse Eric turn ed an' walked on to his office. I went up dar wid 'im, an' he sat down at his desk an' helt his head 'twixt his han's an' sort o' moan like. ' What's de matter, Marse Eric?' I axed 'im, fer I never seed a man on de eve of a big battle which was all his way act so funny. Den Marse Eric unkivered his face
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an' say, ' Unc' Lewis, I'd 'a' give my right arm ruther 'n 'a' had a fight on dat particular matter. I didn't want ter be mixed in it at all, an' now it will be in de papers an' all over de country.'"
"That was a pity, a great pity," Abner comment oedv,er".b'' ut Quagmire driv' the boy to it. It will blow
"But dat wasn't all," Lewis went on, anxiously, " an' dis is why I want ter know what Marse Eric got ter do wid dat white-trash Warren. De next day I was at de well at de court-house gittin' me a drink, when Mr. Barker come out an' said de old rapscallion wanted to see me to see me, bless yo' soul! me! Mr. Barker went up dar wid me, an' what you reckon dat man want? Huh!"
"The Lord knows," Abner answered, his face rigid with interest "the Lord only knows, Lewis."
" He was dar in dat iron box on a little bed to one side, an' he got up an' come ter de bars an' hung on ter 'em like a monkey in a cage. I never seed sech a sight in all my life. Mr. Barker say he's part de time crazy an' desp'rit, an' de rest o' de time prayin' an' cryin'. He tol' me not ter pay no 'tention ef de old scamp cussed or said bad things. Well, suh, I never would 'a' knowed dat old Warren, he was dat thin an' bony an' sunk-eyed. He opened up an' axed me ef I was still wid Marse Eric, an' when I tol' 'im I was he let in to cussin' wuss 'n I ever heard any body in my life. An' when he kind o' broke down an' had to cough it out, he told me he wanted me to tell Marse Eric he'd heard about de fight, an' fer me to tell Marse Eric to keep hisse'f out'n his matters. He said he never had opened his mouf agin Marse

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Eric in five years, but ef Marse Eric didn't keep out'n his business he'd make a speech, he would, on de scaf fold, an' let de whole county know a thing or two. He axed me ef I'd tell 'im, an' I said I would, fer I wanted to quiet de old fool. As I come off, Mr. Barker tol' me not ter take a tale like dat to Marse Eric, 'case, he said, Warren was out'n his head, an' all de time cussin' everybody his lawyers an' well-wishers an' even friends. Mr. Barker said he was literally scared to death, an' didn't want to die."
" I reckon you didn't tell Eric, then?" Abner said, in eager tentativeness.
"Yes, I did, Marse Daniel," the old negro made answer. " I 'lowed suppen was betwixt dem two dat de outside didn't know 'bout, an' so I went down whar Marse Eric was fixin' up to leave his house. He was in his smokin'-room, takin' down some pict ures fum de wall to send to de plantation."
"You give 'im the message?" Abner said, almost breathlessly.
"'Yes, suh, I did, an' to my dyin' day I never ex pect to see my young marster look so terrible. He sorter groaned-like, an' set down on de couch. ' I told you, Lewis,' he say, 'dat I ort not to 'a' had dat trouble wid Quagmire.'
"'But, Marse Eric,' says I, 'how kin dat low, white-trash rapscallion do you any harm?'
"When I ax 'im dat, he sorter groan an' say: ' Unc' Lewis, Warren is got it in his power ter stain de puorest, best, an' sweetest character dat ever lived. He may git so reckless to'ds de end dat he'll speak out an' tell things he haint got no right
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ter mention. Dat would kill me, Unc' Lewis! Some folks would believe what he said.'
"Dat's all I could git out'n 'im, Marse Daniel, an' s'towiIxt'lo'ewmed.", mebby, you could tell me what's up
"I can't tell you anything, Lewis," Abner said, thoughtfully; "but take my advice an' don't speak to a soul of that message to Eric. At sech a time a body can't be too particular. Eric's stuck to you; now you stick to him. He'll tell me 'n' you both about his affairs when he can do it properly an' in his own time."
"All right, Marse Daniel all right," the old negro said. " You know what's best. I des want ter he'p Marse Eric ef I kin, suh."
When Abner reached his home he sent Eric a note telling him the outcome of his visit to Atlanta and what he intended to try to accomplish the next day at the church.

XV
I HEN Abner arrived at the meeting5 house the next morning the open space f round the little building was filled with 3 all sorts of rural vehicles. There were _ j wagons containing chairs, buggies, gigs, buck-boards, battered ante-bellum carriages, and many saddle-horses. Abner was just about to enter, and had taken off his hat at the steps, when he saw Eric Vaughn com ing on a mettlesome horse, followed by Uncle Lewis on a mule. Eric rode up to a hitching-rack and dismounted, and Abner went to meet him. Eric gave his horse into the charge of the old servant, and came forward. "I reckon you got my note," Abner said, as they shook hands. "Yes, and I was prepared for the news," the young man answered. "I know of six letters that went to the Governor from personal friends of his after you left Darley with the petition. In each of them he was asked as a favor to ignore your re quest." "I 'lowed some'n' had got the matter with 'im," Abner smiled. " He certainly cut me off short enough, but, as I wrote you, I told 'im I was goin' to try to git up a paper from this destrict to-day,
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an' ef I kin make a good showin', Eric, we may, at least, git the respite."
"They won't sign it," Eric answered, despondent ly. "We could hardly have picked a more unlucky time. Tom P. Smith has lots of influence in this community, and he's already been talking against Warren."
"You say he has?" Abner's face fell. "Yes; he got in an argument over it at Darley day before yesterday. He took a strong stand against Warren, and actually grew mad over it. In fact, I'm a little afraid he may bring up the sub ject this morning.'' "Good Lord! I hope not, Eric. Most o' these folks think the sun o' Paradise rises an' sets in that cheap-John spouter. I come by Sam Billingsley's house on the way here missed talkin' to my Bibleclass on account of it. He was out lookin' at a new wine - press that was sent to 'im from Atlanta, an' he wouldn't talk about anything else. ' Don't think I'll sign your paper,' says he. ' Si Warren has been a scourge to the community long enough. I don't see what good it 11 do to interfere they say he's about to die, anyway!' Billingsley's hand an' glove with Governor Whitehurst," Abner concluded. '' Had 'im to dinner at his house when the Gov ernor was stump-speakin' through the mountains." A hymn was being raised by a woman with a shrieking voice, and a packed house joined in lustily. Abner beat time mechanically with his indexfinger, describing a triangle in the air. "Ole Sal started that un too high," he said, with a laugh. "They'll strike a snag in the last line an* all fall

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in a pile. Thar! what did I tell you? Every male voice has drapped out, an' them old maids is a-filin' saws alone. Now they'll have to begin over ag'in. Singin' like that ud rip the throat out of a brass monkey. It orter 'a' been started at low G to 'a' give plenty o' room fer the sky-rockets at the end o' the verse. Come on, let's go in."
The two entered together, Abner walking straight up the aisle to his usual seat in the amen corner, where Leftwich and Jim Garden were keeping a seat for him, and Eric sat near the door.
''Went back on us, ole hoss," Jim said, cordially; "tuck on too much rot-gut in Atlanta, an' had to sleep it off. Well, we done without you. We read that thar chapter whar Noah got on a jag an' "
"Sh!" said Abner, cautiously. "Sunday-school's over. I'm here to listen to Tom P." He turned to a smooth-faced, elderly farmer on the bench behind him. " Big a crowd as a school-exhibition, Brother Beasley," he said, with a smile 'of greeting.
The man addressed raised his brows as he spat down into one of the wooden boxes half-filled with sawdust and tobacco quids.
"Smith would draw a packed house ef the river was up an' the bridges washed away," he said. "I was jest tellin' my wife, comin' on, that Smith's big popularity was due to the fact that meetin' folks won't go to circuses an' don't have no healthy amuse ments. As I told 'er, folks is built fer fun, an' they will have some of it by hook or crook, an' Smith is the only clown they kin git at. It adds to the sport to know that the Lord stands behind 'im. I've seed women folks laugh at a tale o' Smith's that wasn't
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above the level of a bar-room at a minin'-camp. Ab, you'd make a good preacher o' that sort yorese'f. You will make a joke out'n ever'thing. Say, what luck are you havin' with that thar petition?"
"Fine, fine!" affirmed Abner. "I seed the Gov ernor yesterday, an' showed 'im the big list o' names from Darley. He's all right, but he sort o' hinted that it ud look a little better to add a few o' the most substanch from this destrict, an' so I come home fer that purpose. I'm agoin' to have yore name at the top, Brother Beasley. You are a leadin' man here, an' all the rest are afraid to act on the'r own judg ment till you take a stand." Abner was drawing the paper in question from the pocket of his coat. "You mought jest scribble it down now with my pencil," he added, indifference in his voice but far
from his eye. Beasley shook his head; his face was evasively
rigid. "I reckon I won't sign, Ab," he said, as he spat
again. " I've been studyin' over the matter con siderable. I don't see what call we-uns have to step in before the verdict of a select jury. Ef we're ever goin' to have a hangin' we mought as well begin on Si Warren; he's about as worthy a subject as I know anything about."
Another hymn was being raised and the congre gation was struggling to its feet. Abner put the paper back into his pocket. He could see Eric Vaughn down the aisle. Eric was a marked man, in his well-fitting suit and stylish necktie, amid the motley gathering of men in home-woven and home-made garments. The two friends exchanged
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glances. Abner dropped a quid of tobacco into the sawdust box and began to sing bass.
Smith, a medium-sized man of about fifty years of age, dark haired and as swarthy of complexion as a Spaniard, with a stiff, black mustache, had risen from his high-backed chair behind the crude pulpit and stood leaning over the big open Bible. Any one with half an eye could see that he was im portant, and felt it. When the congregation ceased singing, with a tired, downward gesture he signified that they were to kneel, and then in a silent flutter ing of fans he stood and prayed. Some men had said that the only refined feature about the Rev. Tom P. Smith's services were his prayers they were refined, perhaps, from frequent use. It was only in his sermons that his real individuality rose to the surface and had full play. One seldom re called the texts with which he began his talks, so completely were they lost in his later vitupera tion. When in a rural spot like this, away from the railroads, his method was to amuse and even flatter his hearers by caustic criticisms of the manners and methods of more progressive communities. On this occasion he held Darley high in ridicule and con demnation. He said the new gas-works had burned up all the good old-time religion that had once flow ed into the place from the green fields and rugged mountains round about. With the disappearance of tallow-dips and pine-knots the people had taken on city ways and left the Lord in the backwoods.
" They want to build up, they say!" Tom P. shout ed, and his lip curled in scorn. "They are buildin' down, I tell you, down to roarin' hell every minute.
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Last week I held a meetin' over thar, an' one night after a rousin' time, in which God walked amongst us an' laid His hands on many heads bent in prayer, a society woman come to me in the corner o' the church when everybody was leavin'. She was ashamed, I reckon, to march forward amongst the other seekers, fer she was a leader in high society 'socyty,' all the little, stoop-shouldered, wart-nosed town dudes call it. She give lawn-parties, card-par ties, dances, an' conducted gum-suckin' matches in dark corners round her house betwixt the opposite sexes. She had drapped in to my meetin' on 'er way to a ball, an' said she'd heard my talk an' was under conviction. She had diamond year-bobs, spit-curls stuck to 'er alabaster brow, an' powder enough to whitewash a back-yard fence. Her dress was so low at the neck that well, I was glad my wife wasn't nigh. Thar'd been a row. [Laughter.] Mrs. Smith's got religion, sisters, but she hain't got it deep enough to stand quiet an' let me convert a half - clothed society woman. You kin bet yore boots she wouldn't let me work a cure by layin' on o' hands. [Laughter.]
" ' So you are under conviction, are you, madam?' said I, an' she said she was. ' Well,' said I, ' sister,' as I took one look at 'er this away [Smith put up his hand and peeped through his fingers] ' you'd better git under cover. I hain't no doctor. I don't want to make no examination. Go home an' put on more clothes. I could talk politics to you with jest that skirt on, but not religion! That was the end o' her conviction. She wanted it like a bath."
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house. Old Beasley uttered a loud guffaw, and, reaching over, he pounded Abner in the back. " Did you ever!" he said. "The dern skunk! Ab, that feller ort to be tuck out an' licked."
"An' they've built 'em an opera-house, too," Smith went on, smiling down appreciatively at Jim Garden, who seemed unable to curb his risibilities and was still sniggering audibly, his small head bob bing up and down behind the high back of the bench in front of him. "They hain't no longer satisfied with prayer - meetin' an' psalm - singin', like they was of old, but the leadin' men o' that Sodom an' Gomorrah have chipped in an' built 'em an up-todate opera-house. Some o' you old-timers don't even know what that sort of a hell-hole is, but you will if you go to Darley. A opera-house is what they call any sort of a theatre in this country. ' Opera' sounds big, an' they tack it on to every place that has a curtain go up an' down in it. I'm ashamed to tell you what sort o' exhibitions the people in Dar ley indulge in in that house. Old Brother Chasteen, a good, saintly soul that runs a furniture-store over thar, talked to me t'other day with tears in his eyes. He was fed an' bred on old-time religion, an' is starvin' without it. He said some show folks had the gall to send to him one day to borrow a set o' his chairs an' a sofa to fit up a Fifth Avenue scene, an' he mighty nigh broke the back o' the nigger that fetched the note. I axed Brother Chasteen what sort o' shows they had in the house, anyway. An' he said, said he: ' Brother Smith, I jest cayn't tell you. My tongue sticks to the roof o' my mouth, an' I feel bashful even talkin' to a man about it. Why,
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Brother Smith,' said he, ' ef I was jest to say--jest to say on the street how short the dresses o' them highkickers are, I'd be arrested an' put in jail fer public indecency, an' yet the members o' my church go an' set in ball-head row.' [Laughter.]
"Do you know -what ball-head row is?" Smith was pounding the pulpit with his clinched hand, his nostrils rising and falling visibly. " It's the fust row nighest the platform, an' is called that beca'se all the old, half-blind men set thar to see what keeps the gals' stockin's up. They play poker fer stakes at Darley, too. They've got dancin'-clubs, an' have swarees, an' that's whar the men an' women meet one another an' pick the'r life partners. Think o' that! When me 'n' you used to go courtin', brethern, we set an' talked across a big log-fire ef we talked at all with the old man an' woman toastin' the'r bare feet an' workin' the'r toes betwixt us an' the gal. Courtin' meant some'n' them days. It meant buildin' up homes, tillin' the soil, milchin' the cows, hog-killin', makin' lye-hominy, raisin' a whole raft o' childern, an' workin' an' prayin' an' thankin' God. These days, at Darley, it means a man an' woman up before a gapin' crowd, with the'r chests wadded together, spinnin' round in each other's arms, with the'r heels on a level with the'r backs, an' slander an' gossip, an' military weddin's. I see some of you lookin' about, wonderin' what a military weddin' is. It's a ceremonious affair, I tell you, a solemn occasion whar two young folks is united in the noly bonds o' wedlock with several men standin' by with cocked guns a father an' sons, maybe waitin' fer the couple to do what they ort to 'a' done 'fore they
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started business. You folks out here in the open air hain't gone as fur as that, but Darley is a little hell, I'm here to tell you. They say Paris, France, is the devil's pride, but I'm here to say that, fer its age an' opportunities in wickedness, Darley is cer tainly in the procession."

XVI
HOWARDS the close of his sermons the [ Rev. Tom P. Smith usually left the \ pulpit and stepped down on the door i inside the altar-railing. He did this _ _ _ _j now, lugging the big Bible under his arm and dropping it "with a crash on a little table. He then reached back and got the glass water-pitch er and goblet, and placed them by the book. "An' what's it all leadin' to?" he asked, detaching a dangling pair of cuffs from the "wrist-bands of his shirt and laying them on the table. "It's leading straight to this now mark my words! Wherever you see a lots o' evil-doers you'll see a certain sort o' forgiveness a sort not of God, but invented by the devil, fer his purpose. Them folks are so full o' sin an' despair that when they see a man fetched up in the courts fer wrong-doin' they are the fust to condone it, an' set in to bribe juries, an' blind judges, an' work on the feelin's o' women an' childern. Right now, over at Darley, thar's a man in jail con demned fer deliberate murder. He's a criminal o' the deepest dye, a man you all know as a neighbor, to yore sorrow. He never darkened the door of a meetin' -house in his life, but he throwed his shadow in ever' bar-room an' low joint he could run across. He made several attempts on life, an' at last suc-
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ceeded. But how did some o' the Darley folks act about it? They've been pamperin' 'im up an' sendin' 'im sweet things to eat, an' silly, blubberin' wom en have even sent 'im bouquets flowers, mind you, to that sort of a man, when thar are honest men workin' fer honest livin's in the town, that never smelt a flower plucked by female hands. A petition was tuck down to the Governor this last week beggin' that a respite be granted of a month, so that some shyster lawyer would have time to skirmish around an' hire some unprincipled witness to swear a lie. But public opinion was so badly divided that the petition wasn't loaded down with names, an' I have it from good authority that the Governor ignored it. However, the man that tuck the petition says he hain't done yet. He says he's goin' to present a pa per to this here community whar Warren lived, an' with yore sanction he's goin to make another ap peal to the Governor. I know what you-all will do. You'll let that paper alone. You won't go on record as upholdin' disorder an' bloody crime. Yore homes wouldn't be safe with a demon like that rampagin' at large."
The preacher paused to drink a glass of water, and then he took up his cuffs and slid his brown hands through them, and hitched up the sleeves of his coat. Abner, looking down the aisle, saw Eric Vaughn's rigid features as the young man sat star ing at the floor. Near the front sat old Mrs. Dilworthy, her head bowed under her sunbonnet.
Old Beasley leaned over Abner's shoulder and whispered in his ear. " He's got a grudge agin that town," he said, with a soft laugh, under cover of
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his big, hairy hand, "an* I think I know the cause of it. He helt a revival over thar last spring an' wound it up with a effort to take up a big subscrip tion to a mee tin '-house he was goin' to build down at his birthplace to his own glory; but the revival fell through. Folks wouldn't turn out; thar was a lots o' shindigs 'mongst the young bloods picnics, dances, an' one thing another. They say it made Tom b'ilin' hot."
"He's hot now," said Abner, calmly. "He sort o' give you a dig 'bout that petition," Beasley said. " I don't think that was exactly aboveboard, an' you one of our leadin' members." Abner shrugged his shoulders. Jim Garden had his lips to his other ear. " I hain't been plumb crazy over that Warren business, Uncle Ab," Jim said, "but Smith hain't got no right to " "Dern you," Abner broke in, with mock severity and a smile he could not control, "you set thar laughin' at ever'thing the scamp said." " How could I he'p it?" Garden tittered; " that fel ler's hell on wheels. 'Twasn't so much what the rascal said as what he helt back. He's a corker, I tell you." Abner said nothing, for Smith was ending his talk \vith the benediction. The congregation was leav ing when Abner suddenly sprang forward and held out his long arms and hands, and began to wave them up and down. "Keep yore seats a minute!" he shouted; "don't go out. I want to say a word." The people resumed their places. The room be came still in a moment. " I've got some'n' to say, an' I got to say it now," Abner went on. " I've helt my peace till the preach -
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in' was over, beca'se I don't intend to have nobody goin' 'fore the grand-jury an' gittin' a true bill agin me fer disturbin' public worship. Brother Smith has done me a favor. I'm the party that's got the petition to present to you, an' his mention of it is jest what I want. Brothers, sisters, an' well-wish ers; Smith has clawed an' hammered, spit on an' chawed mighty nigh ever' sort o' man an' callin' 'cept his own. We'd all act different ef we could see our selves jest as we look to other folks. Turn about is fair play. I want Brother Smith, fer once in his life, to see hisse'f jest as he looks to one unprejudiced observer.''
"I'm willin', Brother Daniel," Smith spoke up, with a furious sneer " I'm willin' to hear what you think o' me."
"Well, you keep quiet an' I'll let you," Abner said. Then he pointed down steadily at the preach er, who had taken a seat outside the altar-railing, and continued: " Brothers and sisters, wharever this man goes it's ' Tom Smith this, an' Tom Smith that,' until he thinks jest Tom Smith an' the Almighty is a runnin' the entire universe. But he's doin' harm
harm, I tell you! He's as blind as a day-old kit ten. You may not see it in all the smoke an' hulla baloo of his racket revivals, but he's doin' downright harm. I'll give you an illustration o' what I mean. I knowed a sweet old lady that was nigher the cross than anybody I ever met she liter'ly lived at the foot of it, an' kept the soil fertilized an' green with 'er tears an' prayers fer continued sanctity. She was one o' the sort that lives an' breathes religion, jest as a bush full o' roses drinks sunshine an' gives
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out sweet odors. She had a list o' all the big preach ers she'd ever heard preach, an' she'd never tire o' settin' an' tellin' you jest exactly what particular blessin' she'd received from each one. She'd go miles in any sort o' weather, on foot or hossback or cars, to listen to the thunder o' some big speritual gun she'd heard of. Somehow, she'd never run across Brother Smith, an' she seemed to jest have one wish of 'er life ungratified, an' that was to hear Tom P. hold forth on one o' his immortal talks like that un you've jest heard. The pore, good old soul seemed to think ef she ever did set under the sound o' Smith's voice that she'd never have any more curiosity about what was to come in the hereafter. She said thar shorely must be some'n' divine in a man that could draw sech big crowds an' got up sech a stew wharever he went. So one day, while Brother Smith was a-holding forth in his big tabernickle tent at Darley, in the lot j'inin' the liver'-stable, whar the circus always plants itse'f, I went over in my buggy an' give 'er a invite to go to meetin' with me the next mornin'. Lawsy me, she was the happiest creature I ever seed! She was up 'fore day lookin' fer me, an' ad mitted that she hadn't slept a wink through the night, thinkin', I reckon, about what the Smith feather would look like that was to be added to her spiritual plumage. It railly wasn't time to go to town, but she was so impatient to be on the move that I started, an' walked my hoss, an' dallied along the best I could to kill time. We got to the tent jest as a man was unropin' the front slit, an' we set thar waitin' fer the crowd to come in. After a long time the woman that played the organ sa'n-

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tered in, an' a boy that blowed an army bugle come, an' the brag singer, a young man that sung ' Whar is my wanderin' boy to-night?' with sech deep sad ness that even the old maids was sobbin' an' axin' the'rselves the question in dead earnest. It was a big to-do, men passin' amongst the benches, like lem onade-men at the circus, sellin' Tom P.'s picture an' a history o' how he'd riz from a mountain rail-split ter to the next best thing at the Throne. All this time my little woman was lookin' at the door to see ef she could pick out the man o' men, but she couldn't. An' when he finally come I had to p'int 'im out to 'er. An' when she seed Smith she give 'im one little, worshipful look an' then drapped 'er head in prayer I seed 'er lips movin', an' heard 'er sayin', ' God bless 'im! God bless that saintly man!'
"Then Smith riz an' paced out in front o' the or gan an' begun. Ever' nasty yarn he'd ever heard he reeled off with a whiz an' a bang till my little partner begun to gasp. She was fust red, then white, an' finally fell to quiverin' all over like she had chills. She looked like she was liter'ly scared to death. Once I thought shore she was goin' to squeal right out. As soon as she could do it without attractin' atten tion, she got up, an' me 'n' her went out to the buggy. Said she wanted to go home. That's all I could git out of 'er. On the way back she wouldn't talk. Finally, I axed 'er what she thought about the great an' only, ' eat-'em-alive' cock o' the revival platform, an' she bu'sted out cryin'. ' Oh, what does it mean?' she said 'what does it mean? I never dreamt he was that sort of a man!' An' from that day to the day o' 'er death she never mentioned Smith's name."
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2 HE preacher, a look of rage on his face, ' was rising when Abner stepped for^ ward and put his hand on his shoulder ^ and pushed him gently but firmly back _ _ _ ^ into his seat. "No," he said, with a smile; "you set still! I never put in when you had the floor, an' it's my time now." "Set down, Brother Smith!" Beasley cried out. "Let's have fair play. As hard a fighter as you ort to be willin' to box a little now an' then fer a change." The preacher sank back, quivering with sup pressed rage, but he made no other effort to inter rupt the speaker. Just then Jim Garden rose and went to Abner, and, like a client prompting his lawyer during a crossexamination, he drew Daniel's ear down to a level with his lips and whispered: " Hit 'im on what that feller told us. Don't you remember about Smith writin' that mean letter to that old widow woman about her church dues, an' didn't sign any name to it. Hit 'im on that, Uncle Ab! Tell what the wom an said to 'im when she found out who writ it." "I won't do it," said Abner. "I don't know whether it's true or not. What I say 'bout Smith '11 be the truth an' nothin' else. Set down! Set down ! You hain't a-runnin' this."
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Garden went back to his seat, smiling grimly and winking triumphantly at George Leftwich.
"Yes, siree. Tom P. Smith, in my opinion, is a-doin' more harm 'an good," Abner's mellow tones rang out. " Little boys an' gals are a-hearin' him spout his bar-room slush, an' are a-laughin' an' a-axin' sly questions an' a-growin' Smith ward entire ly too fast. I don't like Smith's methods he hain't my sort o' Method^. Down thar at Midway, whar he helt forth last month, he actually had a bloody fisticuff fight in the name o' the mild an' gentle Jesus. Midway is a dry town. The law says no whiskey kin be sold thar, but any man kin make all the domestic wine he wants, an' sell it on his own premises. Thar was a sorter easy-goin', harmless man at Midway, by name o' Dunn, who kinder prided hisse'f on the wine he made an' sold about fer one purpose or other, an' when Smith struck the town he announced that he was goin' to put the feller out o' business. So, in a roundabout "way, he ripped 'im up the back the fust night said that any man that ud make an' sell wine was a yaller hound pup. That made Dunn stop goin' to Smith's meetin', and Smith got hotter 'an ever. He begun callin' Dunn's name out in the pulpit, an' upbraidin' 'im fer everything he could think of. Still Dunn didn't quit sellin' wine, an' then Smith played his trump cyard he tuck along a couple o' witnesses an' went to Dunn's house. Smith presented an agree ment to 'im to sign. Smith said ef the paper wasn't signed he'd make it hot fer 'im. They say Dunn was sorter scared o' Smith most folks is afeard to oppose even a fakir that claims to have any sort o'
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password to t'other world, an' Dunn looked uneasy an' tried to argue with Tom P. about havin' a legal right to make wine, an' bein' a free American citi zen an' the like; but Smith wouldn't have it. He wanted a paper that he could show around, an' he got hotter an' hotter till the fust thing he knowed he was callin' Dunn a yaller pup right to his face. Then a feller that was standin' by stepped up to Dunn an' said: 'This thing's gone fur enough; me 'n' you's second cousins, an' ef you don't mash that man's mouth I'll lick you. That sorter got Dunn's family pride up, an' he up an' told Smith the yaller-pup charge at least ud have to be tuck back. Smith said he wasn't thar to take back any thing but that paper, an' the second cousin spoke up an' said, ' Slug 'im, dern you!' He said the ' dern,' I didn't; an' they say Dunn did sorter give Smith a shove towards the gate, an' then they went at it. It was the hardest mortal fight, experts say, that ever tuck place. Smith was the biggest an' tough est, an' he finally got Dunn down an' helt 'im thar till he said the benediction. Then Smith walked off up-town, shakin' hands with the bretheren, an' tellin' 'em he had jest been obliged to fight fer the Lord an' had come out victorious.
"The Lord Jesus Christ made wine out'n puore water in His day, an' never thought nothing about it; an' right here amongst us is Brother Billingsley I see 'im back thar now, bless his honest heart! he makes the best I ever tasted. I heard Brother Tompkins say it saved the life o' his gal. Little Minnie begun to fail; she got so puny she spit up ever'thing she ate, an' Brother Billingsley sent over
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some o' his home-made wine, an' axed 'em to give it

to the child along with 'er victuals, an' she begun

right off to mend. Ef Smith had 'a' come along

then Brother Billingsley ud 'a' had to quit that sort

o' thing in a hurry."

" Ugh!" the man alluded to grunted from his seat

near the middle of the church, and there was an

audible titter in his vicinity which threatened to

expand into a laugh.

Abner smiled. "You needn't snort, Brother Bil

lingsley," he said. "You know you'll have to dig

up them grape-vines o' yo'rn."

an'

burn

that

thar

new

press

" I'll burn nothin'!" growled Billingsley. " I obey the law o' the land, an' pay my taxes, an' ef anybody wants me to " His words were drowned in the laughter of the farmers who sat near him, convulsed with merriment over his show of anger.
" Oh, you may think now you wouldn't, Brother Billingsley," Abner said, with keen sarcasm; "but when Tom P. Smith sticks his fist in yore face, an' you hear yore front teeth a-rattlin' like dice amongst yore back molars, an' you have to swallow the loose ones to keep from chokin' to death, you'll do a lots that you don't think you'll do now! Thar's Brother Beasley, too, he makes a good wine, an' sells it when he don't give it to the sick an' needy; he'll have to come across, too. Yes, he'll have to shet up, fer Smith is abroad in the land, an' "
"I'm nobody's slave, Brother Daniel!" Beasley broke out. And he glared at the preacher defiantly.
Smith sprang to his feet, beside himself with fury. "Any man," he said, "that makes wine to the eter-
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nal damnation o' the young o' the land is no Chris tian, an' is unfit for citizenship in any civilized com
munity." " That's all you know about it!" Beasley hurled at
him. " If you didn't wear the cloth o' the ministery I'd crawl over these benches an' beat you till you
are black in the face." "I hain't never been beat yet," Smith retorted,
"and I ain't no coward. When I know a thing's wrong, I'll fight it till I fall in my tracks."
Abner raised his hands. " Don't fight here, bretheren," he said, winking down at Jim Garden, who was regarding him as a subaltern might his general in the heat of successful conflict. " I'm here fer a dif ferent purpose. I'm agoin' to ax you all to sign a paper to the Governor. I want Governor Whitehurst to prolong the life of a pore devil jest thirty days, so that he may have one more chance to prove his innocence. Si Warren ain't a good man; but all the men the Lord Jesus Christ tuck pity on wasn't good men. Jesus pardoned the thief on the cross, an' ef He was here to-day an' seed that pore, dyin' creature as I seed 'im not long ago, peerin' at me through them bars, an' wasted away to a mere sem blance of humanity, He'd take pity on 'im. Si War ren's sorry for the life he's led. He claims that Abe Wilson seed the whole difficulty, an' would testify in his favor ef Abe could be got at. We want an other month to make one more attempt to locate the witness. When I come here this bright, sunshiny mornin', my heart was full o' hope that I'd git a strong paper to take to the Governor to-morrow, but as soon as Tom P. Smith tuck a stand agin War-
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ren my heart sunk. A big gun like he is kin sort o' mould public opinion, an' so he knocked me clean out o' the ring. I was countin' on Brother Billingsley's an' Brother Beasley's help, but they'd never oppose Tom P. Smith in "
Billingsley had risen and stood signalling to Abner with his short, fat hand and arm. His mien was that of a man full of suppressed fury and resent ment.
" I want to head that thar paper," he said to the men around him. " Ab Daniel, my neighbor, recom mends mercy to Warren, an' that's enough fer me. I don't have to listen to ever' jack-leg mountybank that comes along kickin' up thunder an' rammin' his notions down folks' throats."
Smith stood up, trying to find an opening to say something, but he was unnoticed.
"All right, Brother Billingsley," Abner smiled. "I'll slap yore name down in the cause o' mercy an' fergiveness. Who'll be the next?"
"I'll write mine down good an' black," said Beasley, and he strode forward, his pencil in hand. "You'd better keep mine an' Billingsley's together." He glowered at Smith. "We mought contaminate some o' the balance."
The congregation was on its feet. There was a great surging forward. The leading farmers, all amused, were anxious to sign the petition which Abner had spread on the table and stood over with welcoming smiles. " Let's have it unanimous, bretheren," he chuckled, making a wry face at Leftwich and Garden as Tom P. Smith, hat in hand, strode angrily towards the door. " I 'lowed fer a while that
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Smith had already hung Warren, but I see you all want to do the fair thing."

On his way home, half an hour later, Abner found

Eric Vaughn waiting for him at the foot-log across

the creek.

" I see you are successful," the young man said,

with a hearty smile. "Uncle Ab, you'd have made

a great lawyer. From beginning to end, your

speech was the most adroit thing I ever heard."

"I did the best I could," Daniel answered. "I

hated to lower myself to usin' Smith's own thunder

in the house o' God," he went on, with a sheepish

smile, " but thar wasn't no other way. In one more

minute I'd'a' had Billingsley an' Smith pawin' hair

like wild Indians, with Beasley ready to drap in at

the fust openin'."

"What do you think the Governor will do?" Eric

asked.

Abner shook his head doubtfully and drew a

tired breath.

" I hain't let myse'f think o' that," he replied. " If

I had, I'd not 'a' put this through to-day. Ef you

want to succeed at a difficult undertakin' don't look

at any obstacle except the one nighest to you. Climb

that an' tackle the next. We've got a chance, that's

all."

"A chance for the respite," Eric said; "but how

about finding Abe Wilson?"

"That's the obstacle that's furdest off," evaded

the old man. " Let's git the respite fust. Thar's one

thing I'd like to keep quiet," he added, thought

fully. " I hope this action here to-day won't reach

x

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Darley an' git noised about till I see the Gov ernor."
"You are afraid some of the Darley people might write down and try to defeat it?"
"You bet I am; they are makin' it a political is sue. Think o' that! makin' a pore devil's life an issue in dirty politics. It's got out that Hammond is to be a Populist candidate fer Congress, an' is tryin' to save Warren free of charge to catch the vote o' the common herd."
" I got an inkling of that the other day," Eric said, gravely, as they walked along the road side by side.
Abner was filling his pipe and searching his pock ets for a match.
" Folks will do a good many unthoughted things when they are worked up," he said. " I did a thing this mornin' I wish I could 'a' got around."
"What was that, Uncle Abner?" "Why, you see, I discovered at the very start that I'd not make a bit o' headway unless I got Beasley an' Billingsley mad at Smith. I hate to lower myself below my mark; but I had to do it. I felt belittled, too. Thar is sech a thing as a pot callin' a kettle black, an' ef I wasn't the pot, this mornin', I was certainly t'other vessel. I seed Smith lookin' at me sorter wonderin'-like, through his fury, jest as ef he was sayin', 'Well, thar's one thing certain, Daniel, you 'n' me's both about the biggest fakirs goin', an' ef you wasn't sp'ilin' my game I'd walk up an' shake hands with you.'''

XVIII
5T dusk that evening Eric was walking , down the road, when he saw Abner > Daniel emerge from the wood which I lay between the old man's home and ______._-, e church. " Where have you been ?" Eric asked, as Abner drew near him. "I'd think you had been out for more names to your petition, if I knew of anybody you could reach in that direction." Abner hesitated a moment, and then, with his eyes on the darkening landscape, he said: "I don't believe, my boy, in hidin' good impulses any more'n the bad. The truth is, I've been to her grave. I used to go to it reg'lar. In fact, I went so often that I wore a trail o' my own through the woods from my house to the church; but busybodies got to talkin' about it, an' I quit. They said I was weak in the upper story. I thought ef she'd been alive she'd not want me to be so conspicuous, fer she was awful backward-like, so I let up on it." "She's buried at the church, then?" said Eric, rev erently. "Yes, an' after I left you this mornin', my boy, an' got to thinkin' about what a purty thing you was a-doin' fer yore dead sweetheart, I got sort o' lowsperited. You know ef I jest had a chance o' doin'
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some'n' like that fer the memory o' the girl I was goin' to marry, I'd like it powerful. She's dead an' gone, Eric yore sweetheart is but you are bendin' soul an' body to save her daddy from awful public disgrace. That's as purty to me as a poem."
"You are helping me, Uncle Ab," said Eric. " Without you I could not do a thing, as the matter stands now."
" I was wonderin', Eric," Abner said, "if if yore girl's memory hain't been a sort o' influence fer good in yore life, young as you are. I reckon I've been deterred a thousand times from doin' things I ortn't to by jest axin' myse'f what my sweetheart ud think or say about it ef she was alive."
" There was one time, Uncle Abner," Eric respond ed, as they walked along the road together, " that Marie saved me from absolute ruin and disgrace. It was three years after she died summer before last."
"You don't say!" the old man exclaimed, deeply interested.
"It happened this way," Eric said, with a rising flush. " I had gone from Atlanta with a rather gay social set to the Battery Park Hotel at Asheville, up in the mountains. We were going to stay a week there and go on to Old Point Comfort. There was plenty of money in the crowd, but it was at a time when my funds were running low. I'd been having a streak of hard luck yes, I was playing poker for big stakes, Uncle Abner. I prided myself on know ing the game better than any man in the South, but had met my equals, and, besides, my speculations in futures had almost swamped me. A week be-
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fore that two of the men in our party had proposed a scheme to me to open a sort of bucket-shop in Nashville. It wasn't to be exactly above-board. I knew that at the time, but I was getting desperate under my father's constant threats, and I was in a mood for anything. We had talked the enterprise over on the train, and the men had given me only that day to decide \vhat I'd do."
"And you resisted!" cried Abner. "Thank God fer that!"
"I am afraid I could not have done it in myself alone," Eric declared. "This is what happened: We had just arrived at the hotel in Asheville, and I was strolling through the big, open music-room ad joining the verandas, when I met Uncle Abner, I met a woman so much like Marie that my heart al most stopped beating."
"Like her?" Abner cried. "You don't tell me!" "Yes, we met face to face, and looked into each other's eyes, and for an instant it was almost as if she thought she knew me. The girl was just what I had fancied Marie would have developed into if she could have lived and had advantages. She was alone at the time, and walked on to the veranda and stood looking towards the mountains, and I turned back and got a place at a table where I could watch her unobserved. I never had such a queer feeling in my life. It was as if Marie had actually come to life and was there before me, more beautiful, more real than ever." "That was quar mighty quar!" Abner mused, and he seemed to be treading cautiously. " Did you git acquainted, or ?"

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" No. An old lady and gentleman, distinguishedlooking people, came down-stairs, and together the three got into a carriage with their hand luggage, and were driven to the station. I inquired who they were, but the name has escaped me. She was their daughter, and they were well-to-do people, who trav elled considerably. The thing upset me completely. I couldn't enter into the amusements, the dances, the mountain excursions of my party, and they did not know what to make of me. Wherever I'd go I'd see that beautiful woman. I was alone, avoid ing every one, and thinking over the startling resem blance to Marie, when the men I spoke of approached me with letters from another man offering to make the third partner in their scheme, and they wanted my final decision, so that they could wire a re ply. I pulled myself together and refused pos itively."
"Good! good!" cried Daniel. " I should say it was good," Eric said. " Six months afterwards the firm went to pieces in utter disgrace and public exposure of every man in it. I have al ways attributed my rescue to that strange en counter." Abner was silent, his brow wrinkled thoughtfully. Eric thought he had not heard all he had said. Pres ently the old man asked: "Did it ever occur to you, Eric, that maybe I say maybe, mind you " He went no further, seeming completely lost in deep thought. "You were about to ask me a question," Eric reminded him. "Oh yes," Daniel resumed, impulsively. "Did it
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ever occur to you, Eric, that thar's a bare chance that "
Abner drew himself up "with a jerk; his face changed; a look of startled caution swept over his features.
"You really think there is a chance for Warren, then?" Eric put in, hopefully.
A sudden look of relief came over Daniel; he took a deep breath; he had recovered himself.
"Yes, of course; this petition o' mine does put the thing on a little better footin'," he said, shrewdly; " but we mustn't count too much on it. You know the Governor may turn it down completely."
They had reached the dividing point of their ways; and as Abner trudged on alone he muttered:
"I come as nigh as pease o' gittin' my foot in it. Not long ago I was warnin' Mrs. Dilworthy to keep 'er mouth shet, an' thar I was about to do the very thing I told her not to tetch with a ten-foot pole."

XIX
* was the afternoon before the day set j for the hanging of Si Warren. Eric \ Vaughn had all day been in his meadj ow planning and laying out certain ________^ drainage ditches for the permanent improvement of his property. As the day began to wane and the shadows were lengthening from hill to hill, Eric noticed many wagons filled with country people making their way towards Darley along the main-travelled road. The town on the morrow would be crowded with the gay and the morbidly curious; it was to be a holiday, a day of merrymaking, a great occasion for the shop keepers, the venders of sweets, popcorn, and roasted peanuts. Looking across the meadow towards his house, Eric saw an old woman trudging towards him. It was Mrs. Dilworthy. Leaving Lewis at work, he went to meet her, a strange, sinking sensation at his heart. She had told him early that morning that she was going to Darley to see Warren, perhaps for the last time. As he neared her, she paused and pushed back her gingham sunbonnet; the slanting rays of the sun struck her full in the face, deepening the
angles and lines. "I 'lowed maybe you'd want me to come over
after I got back," she said, hesitatingly. i74

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"Yes, I wanted you to come," Eric replied. " Did they let you see Warren?"
" Oh yes, I seed 'im, an' I almost wish now I hadn't. I'm afeard I'll see 'im before me fer many a night to come. I never in my life witnessed sech a pitiful sight. Somehow, Mr. Eric, he acted more like a sick child than a man. When he seed me he primped up his thin old face an' begun to whimper.
"'Oh, Mrs. Dilworthy,' said he, 'I don't see how I'm goin' to go through it. I 'lowed at fust that I could easy enough, but it's awful awful to walk out 'fore all that big crowd an' have the cap put on, an' then, in plumb night, let 'em jerk my head off.'
"He p'inted towards the winder, an' said, said he: 'Mrs. Dilworthy, this jail's had a crowd o' curious folks about it fer a week, but to-day they've been passin' in a reg'lar stream. I kin hear 'em tellin' one another which cell mine is, an' never yit have I heard one kind \vord about me not one. Mrs. Dil worthy, ef I could be allowed to die in bed or on the ground or anywhar natural, I wouldn't care, but this way is jest awful.'"
" Does he know that Mr. Daniel is in Atlanta to see the Governor?" Eric questioned, a look of deep pain grasping his face.
" No, he hadn't heard it, an' so I told 'im; but it didn't encourage 'im much."
"'The Governor '11 refuse it, Mrs. Dilworthy,' he said. 'Thar's too many voters agin me; they are bent on hanging me, an' opposition jest makes 'em madder an' more determined.'
"Then I told 'im what tuck place out here at meetin' yesterday about Abner Daniel's fine speech

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in his favor, an' he shook all over with sobs; an' when I finally told him about who signed the paper, he looked like he could hardly believe me. ' Not old man Billingsley!' he said; an' then, ' Oh no, Mrs. Dilworthy, you must be mistaken not Joe Tibbitts! Why, Joe swore once he'd kill me on sight, an' hates me wuss 'n a rattlesnake!' But I told 'im I knowed Tibbitts' name was on, fer I was thar when he writ it; an' I tol' 'im Joe's wife cried an' kissed 'im an' said she was proud of 'im.
" Warren got down on his knees then and actu ally tried to pray; but he made a pore out. Folks was raisin' a noise below, tryin' to git Barker to let 'em see the prisoner, an' that disturbed him. Final ly he riz an' come back to the bars, an', said he: ' Mrs. Dilworthy, I'd like to live long enough to thank them folks out thar, an' do 'em some good turn or lastin' favor yes, an' ef God was jest lib eral enough with me, I'd like to live long enough to show 'em that I railly have a speck o' good left in me. Then he set in to tellin' me about his old moth er, an' how he'd heard her say when he was a little boy that she was afeard he'd turn out a drunkard, beca'se she'd you know" Mrs. Dilworthy looked down "she'd had a onnatural cravin' fer whiskey at a delicate time 'fore his birth, an' he said often, when he'd try to brace up, her words would come in his mind an' sorter undermine his resolution an' tell 'im it wasn't no use to fight it."
"Poor fellow!" Eric exclaimed, under his breath. "Then I tried to put in a word on another line." Mrs. Dilworthy was avoiding the young man's gaze. " I begun by tellin' 'im he mought be good enough
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to sorter have faith in his own wife, an' that me *n* other folks believed she had been puore an' faithful, a'inm' .that it was jest his bad habits that drove 'er from
" ' I've been thinkin' I mought 'a' been wrong thar; maybe, maybe, I don't know maybe,' he said, sorter slow like; ' fer,' said he, ' I admit I never seed a sin gle thing with my own eyes--that was wrong an' she was a respectable gal when we married.' He went on to tell me about the fine family o' folks she belonged to, an' that she would 'a' looked higher ef she hadn't 'a' been pore an' uneducated, like he was, an' too young to know her mind. Then I sort er led 'im on to " the old woman paused, her sym pathetic eyes raised hesitatingly to Eric's face.
"You mean, Mrs. Dilworthy, that you " " Yes, Mr. Eric, I didn't want Si Warren to die believin' sech an awful lie; an' so I begun to tell 'im how wrong that other suspicion was, but he stopped me; not mad; he wasn't mad, exactly; but he seemed not to want to talk any longer. 'That's different,' he said, short-like. ' That's a subject you women are ignorant on. You don't know as well as a man does what a man an' woman will do under pressure. In that case, I was convinced with my own eyes.' " " If he dies to-morrow," Eric Vaughn said, bitterly, " he'll have his eyes opened that is, if there is a fut ure life. Great God! to think that a father and the father of such a child, could believe as he does five years after her death." "Yes, he'll know the facts then," Mrs. Dilworthy responded, "but the stubborn old Mr. Eric, Si Warren will die believin' as he has all along." She
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turned suddenly and moved homeward. The grim truth of her words fastened themselves on the young man as he stood and watched her.
Only half of the sun's red disk was showing above a distant hill-top. A wagon loaded with pleasureseekers whirled along the road in a cloud of dust. They were singing a merry song, and the driver was cracking his whip like the explosion of fire-crackers.
Eric went slowly homeward. He found old Lewis bending over the big kitchen fire, preparing supper. It was partly served on the long table in the oldfashioned dining-room.
"Lewis," he said, "I don't want any supper, but bring me a cup of strong coffee outside. Put my supper away; I may have it later; I don't feel like eating now."
The negro looked up in deep concern. " All right, Marse Eric," he said, "de coffee done raidy now."
"Well, bring it out."
There was a hammock in one corner of the wide, vine-covered veranda, and into it the young planter threw himself, staring through the dust-laden twi light over the hills towards Darley.
"Why do I let the thing fasten itself on me like this?" he said, for the thousandth time. "I'm not to blame. I was imprudent, ignorant of the ways of the world, but not wilfully bad, and I have done all all in my power. I can do no more, and yet I can't take it calmly."
"All right, young marster," Lewis came out with the coffee, pouring it back and forth from the sau cer to the big china cup. "It 11 scald you, an' it's as strong as ash-lye."
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Eric drank the coffee, and handed the cup to the waiting negro. "Uncle Lewis," he said, as the old man was going away, "I think, after all, that I'll ride to town; saddle my horse!"
" Widout yo' supper, Marse Eric? Oh no, Marse Eric, you'se worked hard to-day, an' you'll be sick."
"I don't want it," Eric said. "If I do I'll get it at the Johnston House, in town."
" All right, Marse Eric," but Lewis did not move. "What are you waiting for?" Eric asked, sud denly. There was a pause. Old Lewis had rested the cup and saucer on the railing of the banisters. " Marse Eric," he began, " dis old nigger's been in yo' ma's family, young marster, all his life. My white folks is 'bout all de kin folks I got, Marse Eric. Dey is kin to me, by good-will an' custom, ef dey ain't by blood; an', Marse Eric, when anything goes crooked 'mongst 'em it hurts me same as ef 'twas my own se'f. Marse Eric, don't git mad at me, suh, but I 'ain't sleep one wink last night worryin' over what yo' trouble is 'bout dis here hangin'." "My trouble, Lewis?" Eric asked, suddenly look ing at the old negro in surprise. "Marse Eric, you cayn't keep it fum me," Lewis pursued. " I been know some'n' wrong sence de day Warren sent dat dare to you. Marse Eric, ef dat man's gwine tell some nasty lie dat '11 hurt yo' ma, or any we-all's women folks, I want to know hit. You know you said he could everlastin'ly ruin some good name, an " Eric rose and stood by the old servant, his hand on his shoulder. For a moment he was undecided,
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and then he said: "You deserve to have your mind set at rest, Lewis; you have been a faithful friend, and I can see how a thing like that would worry you. I can trust you, God knows! Lewis, Warren had a daughter five years ago."
" Yessir, I know, Marse Eric." "She was a nice girl, Lewis the prettiest, best, and most unfortunate girl I ever knew." "I remember, Marse Eric; I seed 'er many an' many a time. I uster be afeard yo' pa ud git on to de way you an' her was carryin' on, gallivantin' 'bout in de woods, an' "
" Lewis, if she had lived she would have been your mistress in spite of all the world. She would have been my wife. Understand that right now."
" You say she would, Marse Eric?" The old man's shaggy brows met in an indulgent frown.
"Yes; and, Lewis, the man that is to be hanged to-morrow is her father. In the eyes of God she and I were man and wife in the eyes of God he is my flesh and blood, and I feel just as if my own father were going to meet that fate. Do you under stand? No, you can't but I stand in her place under this calamity, Lewis. I feel as she would feel if she were here. I've tried to meet it indifferently, but I can't! While Si Warren is under torture, I am under torture; for, if she had lived, she would have suffered. That's all, Lewis. It may all be over to morrow morning. It may be prolonged another month if Abner Daniel prevails on the Governor. That, however, is not likely. Warren will doubt less die in the morning."
"An' say some'n' 'bout you on de scaffold?" i So

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Lewis leaned forward anxiously. "You know, Marse Eric, you tol' me--"
" No; what Warren said that day was said in an ger--that meant nothing!"
" But, Marse Eric, you'member you said dat morniii' I fetch de word fum him dat--"
" I know, Lewis, but there will be nothing of that. Now, get my horse."

XX
VLF-WAY to town Eric met Abner Dan iel on horseback, urging his mare into \ a brisk canter.
"Hello! is that you, Eric?" the old | man called out. "By gum! I thought, bein' on this dark stretch o' road, that I was shore in fer a hold-up. Started to town?" " Yes "--Eric had reined his horse in and was lean ing on the animal's neck towards Abner--" but I was only going to get the news." " I got all thar is, I reckon," Daniel made answer. " Warren's got another chance. He'll live one more month, anyway." Eric said nothing. In the darkness the old farm er could not see his face. Eric made an effort to turn the head of his horse back in the direction of home, but he had, somehow, got the reins crossed, and the animal was steered into the edge of the woods which bordered the road. In a moment the rider had corrected this and was alongside of Abner. He was still silent. "The news struck Darley like a bu'sted shell," Daniel went on, with a triumphant chuckle. " When I landed thar the news spread through the big crowd, an' thar was a storm, I tell you. Them edi tors was the maddest, an' Sprigs, the Democratic

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candidate fer the legislature. Thar was speeches

made agin me an' the Governor from the hotel bal

cony. Fust time I ever was in big company. He

was burnt in effigy in the middle o' the street, whar

they had a big fire made out o' barrels an' boxes.

You couldn't 'a' wedged yore hand into that crowd,

it was sech a jamb, an' it was almost impossible to

hear a word that was said. Sprigs was bellowin'

at the top o' his voice. Accordin' to him lynch law

would now stalk rampant over the county wuss 'n

ever, an' bring down more ridicule from the North,

that already said we was a set o' barbarians. The

crowd was applaudin' like niggers at a corn-shuck-

in'. Then who do you think got up on t'other side

o' the street, on the little platform that sticks out

over the barber-shop? Nobody but Jack Ban tram.

Eric, as the Lord is my judge, in all that smoke, flare,

an' racket, that feller, with his long, yaller hair an'

womanish face, looked to me like Jesus Christ.

" 'Peace! Peace!' he kept yellin', tell he ketched

the attention o' some, an' then sech eloquence as

flowed from that feller's lips has never been heard

in that town. His crowd growed an' growed. I

was on my way to the jail to tell Warren the news,

but I had to stop a little while an' listen. I don't

believe thar was a man or woman under the sound o'

Jack's voice thar to-night that will ever believe in

capital punishment. He knocked every prop from

under the law in favor of it, an' closed by prayin'

that Warren would be able in the comin' month to

establish his innocence. I seed Hammond sneakin'

round behind the crowd listenin' to what was said

agin him by Sprigs an' the editors. He was as mad

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as the Old Nick; he couldn't hardly speak. They was callin' 'im a Populist that had tuck up Warren's case without pay, jest to spite the law-abidin' peo ple o' the community. I heard 'im swear, more to hisse'f 'an me, that he'd save Warren's neck ef he had to break in the damn calaboose an' let 'im out with his own hands."
"And you saw Warren?" Eric prompted him, anx iously. "You took the news to him?"
"Yes, an' got thar, as it happened, 'fore he'd heard it," Abner answered. "He was thar alone in darkness, at the very lowest ebb. Some dev ilish feller had been to the Methodist church-bell nigh the jail, an' tolled it. Warren 'lowed it was meant fer him, an' as he could hear all the noise from the crowd he'd made up his mind he was 'done fer. When I got thar an' walked up the steps he thought I was some man headin' a mob to take 'im out, an' at fust, when I spoke, he was in too much of a stupor to know my voice. I scratched a match an' lit the lamp on the wall, as Barker had told me to do, an' then I ketched sight o' Warren. He was crouchin' down in the furderest corner of his cage, with his pore, skinny hands over his head, quiverin' frightful. I called to 'im several times, an' went round on t'other side nigh 'im, an' hit on the bars with my stick 'fore he looked up. Then when he seed me, I said: ' Good news, Si; you got yore re prieve !'
" I never seed sech a sight in all my life; he squat ted still fer a time like a dazed ape, then he riz-- pulled hisse'f up by the bars, an' come towards me, a-starin' an' a-wonderin', his swelled tongue (he had

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been chawin' it) a-lollin' out. He couldn't speak, an' I told 'im ag'in an' ag'in that he was reprieved, before he seemed to git it through 'im; then a light o' hope begun to rise in his old eyes. He stood still, an' the tears set in to rollin' down his cheeks.
"'I 'lowed I was gone to-night!' he said. 'Oh, my God, I don't want to die on the rope--not on the rope, Abner Daniel; any other way, but not on the roper"
Eric shuddered. He and Daniel rode on silently for a moment, then Eric asked, huskily:
"Did you have any trouble with the Governor?" " Lots, my boy, lots! I thought once I'd failed com pletely. On the way down I 1'arnt he had a political grudge agin Hammond. I went straight to his of fice in the Capitol from the train; but he wouldn't see me--said he had his hands full o' legislative work, railroad commissions, an' what not. I told the por ter I was goin' to stand thar till I seed Governor Whitehurst, that it was a case o' life an' death. Then the Governor sent back word that thar was no use seem' 'im ag'in, that he'd already made up his mind on the Warren matter; he wasn't goin' to in terfere. Then, as a last resort, I sent in my paper. He didn't read it; it come back too quick for that. The porter give me to understand that it was fool ish fer me to persist. Then what do you think I did? I went straight to the Governor's fine house, a mile away, an' axed to see his wife an' his old mammy. A yaller gal let me in, an' I met 'em in the parlor, an* told 'em jest how I felt, an' what I was thar fer. They are good women, especially the old-time, whitehaired one. She kept o' moanin' while I was talkin',
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though her daughter-in-law was constantly tryin' to keep 'er quiet, an' tellin' 'er that it wasn't no busi ness o' the'rs; that ef they once begun to dabble in State affairs, thar'd be no end o' applications, an' that the Governor knowed what was best, an' the like; but the old "woman told 'er fer God's sake to hush fer once in 'er life, an' got up an' put on 'er bonnet, an' ordered a nigger in a beaver hat to git the carriage fer me 'n' her to ride to the Capitol. We went a whizzin'. I never felt so slouchy in my life ; my necktie 'd crawled away above my collar, an' I hadn't had time to wash up or comb the cinders out o' my hair an' beard; but thar I was, side "by side with that old lady, goin' lickity - split over them pavin.'-rocks down that fine street towards the big white State-house, ef not the Governor, the next thing to it, settin' cross-legged in his turn-out next to his old mammy.
"Well, we rid up to the front, an' the flunky on the high seat jumped down an' let us out, an' we went right to the Governor's room.
"'I want to see Tom,' the old lady told the man at the door, an', ketchin' me by the arm, she yanked me right in whar the Governor was in session with a whole batch o' men with papers an' pencils an' lawbooks. He frowned an' looked sorter mad when he seed us. 'Tom,' the old woman said, 'I want you to grant this man's request.'
"'But, mother,' he said, 'I've done all I kin in the matter. You mustn't let it disturb you.'
" ' Disturb me? Disturb me?' she said. ' Why won't it disturb me, when a man that may be as innocent as you or me is axin' jest fer thirty more days o'
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life? Tom, I'm ashamed o' you--ashamed that the people ever made you Governor of a big State like this, if you are goin' to act as inhuman as that! I say, give that pore drunkard a chance!'
"He hung fire, an' I tuck that opportunity to open the petition an' p'int to Billingsley's an.' Beasley's names, an' then, Eric, I made a little talk. I never kin do myself justice unless I've got some sympathizer nigh, an' I had that sweet old lady a-hangin' on every word I uttered, an' a-wipin' 'er eyes an' a-gruntin'."
" God bless you, Uncle Abner!" said Eric. " I im agine I can see and hear you."
" Some o' the fellers round the Governor was men of big political influence, an' I heard 'em tellin' 'im to resk it. One feller, with diamond studs, who looked like a Wall Street poker-player, said, ' Tom, give the pore devil a chance; it can't do no harm, an' it may turn our luck.'
" Well, I won--or the old woman did fer me, an' we went out together. She looked powerful glad.
"' Men hain't got no very deep feelin's, as a gineral thing,' she said. ' Tom would 'a' fooled round with them men all day, an' 'a' let that pore sufferin' soul die without a chance.' Then she tuck out her pocketbook an' give me a five-dollar bill. * Buy some'n' fer Warren with that,' she said, 'or give 'im the money. Tell 'im it's from a old woman that's suf fered more from the evil effects o' liquor than any other woman alive, an' that she knows what it '11 do fer men unable to resist it.'
"She invited me in the carriage ag'in--said she'd put me down wharever I wanted to go; but I told 'er
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I'd prefer to walk, as I had business to attend to. I did have business: I was dyin' fer a glass o' lagerbeer. No man kin say I drink beer as a regular thing, an' I 'wouldn't tell this to a narrow-minded man, but I never struck a town o' any size in my life on a hot day "without wan tin' some, an' I always got it. I slid into the bar at the Kimball House an' ordered a schooner. I never felt so good in all my life, except once in the war when, after bein' scared all day, our boys made the blue-coats turn tail an' chased 'em through the woods like a fox-hunt. I was in fer a prank o' any kind. I had plenty o' time--three hours 'fore my train left. I had the prank, too."
"You did? How was that, Uncle Abner?" Eric was smiling.
"Jest outside the Kimball House," Abner replied, with a grin, "I met Miss Willie Ketchem an' Miss Josie Wynn, them two sweet old maids from Tilton. They was down shoppin', they said, an' walked as prim an' dainty along Marietta Street with the'r corkscrew curls a-danglin' as ef they was on the way to meetin'. They was headed for the ladies' door o' the hotel--said they was goin' up to the big parlor to rest, an' axed me to go along. I'd never been up thar before, an' everything was sorter new to me. So when Miss Willie said she was about famished an' "wanted a drink, an' looked like she was tryin' to hide the fact that she didn't know how to git it in sech a fine place, I sorter thought now was the time fer me, old bach' that I am, to sorter play the gallant an' show them ladies I'd been about. I knowed thar must be some place to ring

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a bell, but I couldn't see no cord nor handle nowhar, an' Miss Willie was axin' ag'in about water, so I acknowledge I felt like a plumb jay from the backwoods. But I kept a-lookin' fer the bell at tachment, an' all at once I seed a little pearl but ton in a silver holder in the wall, an' then I felt bet ter. ' Oh,' said I, jest like I was rousin' up to what she railly was after; ' it's some'n'to drink you want, is it?' an' I riz an' went to the button an' shoved it in, when, lo an' behold! about forty-'leven electric lights all over the room blazed out. Great Scott! I felt like a fool then, an' I didn't even know how to shet 'em off. I slunk back to my seat on the sofa an' set thar wonderin' how" on earth I'd ever git out o' that scrape, an' lookin' like seven idiots in a row at a corn-shuckin'. Jest then a nigger come hustlin' in the room, as mad as Tucker, an' tetched a button I hadn't seed, an' put the lights out. I was afeard he was goin' to ax some fool question, an' I got up quick an' put a half-dollar in his hand. In a low voice I said: ' Fetch us three lemonades, an' keep the change.' 'All right, sir,' said he, an' he went off in a hurry. Then I noticed that them two women was about to bu'st laughin', an' I felt wuss an' wuss. Finally, after some study on it, I seed my loop-hole, an' I was ready fer 'em. ' Miss Willie,' said I, ' what are you laughin' at, anyway?' She didn't answer, but her an' Miss Josie ducked the'r heads an' giggled louder an' louder. Presently Miss Josie said, with her hand over 'er mouth an' makin' a sort o' splutterin' noise: 'Mr. Daniel, we hain't agoin' to tell it on you at home. We'll promise that.'
"'Tell what?' said I, leadin' 'em along. 189

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"'Why,' says she, 'tell that you didn't know the difference betwixt a bell-cord an' the thing to light up the house with.'
"'Why, Miss JosieF said I; 'do you mean to tell me in sober earnest that you've been about as much as you have an' don't know what I did that fer jest now? Don't you know what the -flash-light is?'
'"The flash-light?' both of 'em said at once, an' they quit wantin' to laugh, an' looked sorter like they was ready to hedge.
" ' Why, yes,' says I. ' This is a hotel that's plumb up to date. Some o' the small taverns in the back woods has bells in 'em, but nervous people an' rich folks can't sleep with sech a constant jangle, an' so the latest thing is the patent signal flash-light. A porter is a-settin' at the fur end o' the hall outside, an' when he sees a flash, he comes an' takes yore order. I was orderin' lemonades. Three quick flashes means Scotch whiskey; two stands fer a deck o' cyards, an' one long, steady--like I give--is fer enough lemonade to go round--thar it comes now!'
"Jest then the nigger slid in with the waiter an' glasses an' set 'em down before us.
"'Well, I declare!' Miss Josie said, blushin' all over. ' It's the fust I ever heard o' sech a thing.' "
Eric laughed. Abner's cheerful mood had become his own.
"What will be your next step?" he asked, refer ring to the Warren matter.
They were crossing the ford of a little creek, and their horses lowered their heads to drink from the swift-flowing water.
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" But Jack Bantram put me onto a thing not long ago that I'm going to investigate. He claims that Abe Wilson had some connection with the Joe Clegg set o' moonshiners. I think I know whar they work. Thar is a bare chance that that gang has scared Wilson half to death, an' are a-keepin' 'im out o' the way fer reasons o' the'r own."
"For fear that he may give them away," Eric said, tentatively.
"Yes; they wouldn't know what some expert cross-examiner mought pump out'n a man as weak as Abe seems to be, an' they want to be on the safe side. At any rate, Eric, I'm goin' to work in ear nest now. Them detectives has been hard at it, an' spent lots o' yore money, but they are town men, an' town men don't know mountain folks as well as I do."

XXI
' was a dark night, twenty-four hours j later. Abner Daniel crossed his old ) wheat-field, passed a dismantled barn ? which had been half destroyed by a _ __jj stroke of lightning years before, and, climbing over his boundary fence, at the foot of a stony spur of the nearest mountain, he forged his way through the opposing vines of wild grapes and berries till he finally came to what he was looking for--an almost overgrown, little-used road which led upward. No wagon had traversed the greater part of it in a long time. Abner knew this by the washed-out condition of the stony ground and the trunks of fallen trees which lay across it. Higher and higher the old man trudged, using his stout stick as a sort of third leg to aid him in the ascent, until he felt the air becoming more and more rarefied. He could now get a vague view of the valley below, a vast, mysterious void, beginning no where, ending nowhere, under the wind-blown clouds and the few visible stars. Along the road he walked till he came to a big bowlder, which leaned sharply towards him, like the threatening form of a primeval giant. There Abner paused, hesitatingly. "The trail's either on this side or t'other," he said. "I swear I've forgot. Now, I know; it was the upper."
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Turning immediately to the left of the bowlder, and parting the dense vines, he saw a foot-path lead ing up the even steeper declivity, and this trail he entered and continued to climb. After about half an hour of this laborious task, in which his feet were continually slipping, he came to a little open space on the top of the mountain, in the centre of which stood a log cabin. Beneath and above the crude door shutter were straight lines formed by inward light.
"Thank the Lord!" Abner muttered under his panting breath; "I didn't come fer nothin'. Clegg's at home." Then standing still he raised his voice.
"Hello, in thar!" he cried. "Hello, is Joe Clegg about?"
There was ominous silence for half a moment. It was broken by the sudden clatter of a tin vessel of some sort falling to the floor.
"Hello, in thar; I say! is Joe Clegg at home?" There was a movement of rough-shod feet within the cabin. A heavy wooden bar was taken from its sockets, and the shutter creaked as it opened. Clegg himself, a grizzled mountaineer, short and solid of body and limb, stood, a living picture framed by logs against the light behind him. "Who's thar?" he asked, sullenly. "A friend, Joe, Abner Daniel. Joe, blamed ef I know my way about up here, as much as I've been on the mountain; got off'n the road down below apiece. The truth is, Joe, I stepped on a round rock, an' sorter turned my foot on one side. I reckon I orter set down an' rest a little. It may be a sprain, an' it may not. I don't want to take the resk."
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"Huh!" There was a doubtful pause. The man was peering straight at Daniel through the darkness. Then he turned his head back into the cabin and spoke inaudibly to some one behind him. Finally he looked out.
"Come on in," he said, in a sullen tone. "We's jest gittin' ready to go to bed."
Abner went into the cabin. It contained two men besides Clegg: Alfred Griscom, a slender man of forty, with stiff hair and beard, which grew sparsely only on the highest points of his sunken cheeks and sharp chin, and Clem Wimlett, a red-haired, frecklefaced man of medium height, in a gray flannel shirt and home - knitted suspenders, who had on his slouched hat. The other occupant of the room was Joe Clegg's "wife, an old woman, who sat in the chim ney-corner, her head enveloped in a dingy and tat tered breakfast-shawl, smoking a clay pipe with a reed stem. She did not move or look up, keeping her eyes on the knots of pine that sputtered, flared, and threw up coils of weighty smoke into the capa cious fireplace.
Abner took the proffered chair, and, turning down his sock, he began to rub his ankle. "I'll be all right in a minute," he said. "I hain't as young an' spry by any odds as I was when I was a boy."
No one replied. Abner took in the furniture of the room as his eyes travelled about; he saw two beds, the frames of which were unbarked hickory poles braced to the walls, the mattresses made of homespun cloth and filled with wheat straw, the coverings crude patchwork quilts. There was a rough table near the fireplace, on which lay a
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pack of well-thumbed and badly soiled playingcards.
"You got sorter close quarters," Abner observed. " I reckon you 'n' the old lady bunks in one o' them beds, an' Alf an' Clem in t'other."
Clegg, who was standing, frowned as he spat at the red flames in the fire, and raised one foot and put it on the rung of his chair, and leaned on its back.
" 'Nough room for us," he said, and he caught the raised glances of inquiry that Wimlett and Griscom had fixed on his face. The old woman leaned for ward and dipped up a live coal of fire in her pipe and began to suck the stem with a wheezing sound. Then Joe Clegg did an unexpected thing. He leaned down low and deliberately examined Abner's ankle, firmly turning it to the firelight. "That hain't swelled any to hurt," he said, sententiously. "I reckon it ain't much of a sprain, Daniel."
"No, it's about gone already," Abner laughed, as he pulled up his sock and. pushed his feet out to the fire. "I reckon that was a false alarm."
" I reckon that's what it was," Clegg said, and he looked at the two men and grunted. "Huh! yes, I reckon thar wasn't anything in that."
Abner laughed again. "I'll have to acknowledge the corn, boys," he said. "The plain truth is that I wanted to see you fellers to-night mighty bad, an' I couldn't afford to fail. A lots o' folks has stopped at this cabin in the last five years, an 7 nobody was ever let in. Some o' you-uns would always have excuses to make--sickness, small-pox, yaller fever-- of course, it warn't as bad as that, but nobody got

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in, all the same, an' I railly wanted, as I say, to talk to you fellers, an' so I'm here, an'"--Abner stamp ed his foot on the stones of the hearth--" my ankle's as sound as a silver dollar. Boys, I lied about gittin' off the road. I know ever' pig - trail on this mountain. I could go all over it blindfolded."
"What did you want to see we-uns about?" Clem Wimlett spoke up, suddenly.
"I want to see you-uns," Abner replied, "about he'pin' me an' some more friends to try to keep old Si Warren's neck out'n the halter."
"Huh, Si Warren!" Clem exclaimed, and then he was silent, his gaze fastened inquiringly on Clegg's face.
"Si Warren!" Clegg repeated, and he looked at both his friends, and even at the stonelike profile of his wife.
"That's what I said," Abner went on, in a gentle, would-be-persuasive tone. " Me 'n' some more citi zens don't believe Si's guilty o' deliberate intent to kill."
"Well, what we-uns got to do with it?" Clegg said, his voice rising in a sort of experimental de fiance of the conversation's trend.
"Well, I'm goin' to tell you what you-uns got to do with it," Abner said, firmly, "but, boys, fust I'm agoin' to prove p'int-blank to you-uns that I'm yore friend. Now, hold on--wait till I'm plumb through, an' you'll see that I'm as good as my word. I kin prove it."
" Well, we hain't no objection to that," said Clegg, seating himself in his chair. " I reckon we all need friends, an' ef you are one I reckon yo're as good as
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any. I hain't never had nothin' agin 'im, boys--I hain't had nothin' agin Abner Daniel; he hain't never bothered me in any way."
" Well, you kin bet yore sweet life I could 'a' done it ef I'd been so inclined," Daniel said. "Now, lis ten. Five years ago last April, Joe, you come an' built this cabin on this mountain, didn't you?"
Clegg nodded, slowly, and glanced wonderingly and furtively at the other men. But they were not looking up, and his eyes came back, perforce, to Abner's face. "Yes, I built then, an' these fellers here helped me. They was out o' work at the time, an' they cut an' hauled the logs an' split the roofboards, an'--"
"An' did me a big injury--a big one, I tell you, boys, an' one that I hain't never even mentioned to you, beca'se--well, at fust I didn't know you was doin' of it, an' when I finally found out who was responsible I jest didn't have the heart to call you to taw, an' so it went on."
" What the hell are you tryin' to git through yorese'f?" Clegg questioned, his brow furrowed in per plexed suspense.
Abner laughed heartily. "Joe Clegg," he said, "my farm is five mile from here on a bee-line. I'm proud o' them few acres, fer they're all the estate I've got in the world, an' I expect to sleep thar when I'm laid to rest. Now, what I'm goin' to say may sound as silly as them tales about them Arabian fellers that used to move a palace from one spot to another ever' time they cleaned a lamp. A feller in that day an' time--even a common tailor's son--could call one o' his geniuses an' git transportation on his
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bed to the private quarters of a princess o" the realm before he could bat his eyes. I say, what I'm goin' to tell you-uns may sound as foolish as that. On my land I had a spring that I was as proud of as a body could be, beca'se its flow was as cold as icedrippin's an' as clear as melted diamonds. One day I went thar to git me a drink, an' what you reckon I tasted?--corn liquor as shore as life. It was on it, in it, an' all through it. I dipped the water clean out, thinkin' maybe some feller had jest spilt a little sperits thar; but, lo an' behold! the smell an' the taste stuck to it. Boys, now don't bu'st yore shirtbuttons, but that happened jest about the time youuns went to livin' here in this cabin."
Abner paused. Joe Clegg had turned pale; his wife had ceased smoking, and sat like a figure in carved wood; the other men were staring steadily at the fire.
"I never said one word about the antics o' that spring to my neighbors," Abner went on, ''but I kept a hawk-eye on it. I went thar day after day, an' tasted an' watched. Some time the flavor ud be thar, an' then ag'in it "wouldn't. Then, by gum! Vesuvius had another sort o' eruption. Little, fine husks o' corn-meal, an' sour refuse in general, begun to come up an' stand an' stagnate in my spring, an' once thar was a little cork from a flask a-bobbin' about on the surface. I hain't no fool. I knowed the Lord never had blessed mankind with a spring o' corn whiskey, an' I knowed the stuff wasn't drapped in it, fer I could see the meal husks bubblin' right out o' the virgin rock. So I got to studyin* an' reasonin' an' makin' calculations. Yore cabin was the only one on the mountain, an' so I come up here one

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day. I 'lowed somebody was at home, beca'se as I walked up I seed this chimney a-boomin with smoke. I come to the door. It happened not to be barred, an' I looked in this room, but it was as empty as a bottle full o' air. I come in, an' stood right whar I'm a-settin' now, an' the Lord only knows how funny I felt when I seed thar wasn't a speck o' fire in that chimney -- not a speck! I thought maybe I'd been fooled in my eyesight, an' I went outside ag'in an' looked at the chimney-stack; but, shore enough, she was a-spoutin' smoke like a wet breshheap. Then, determined not to be outdone, I meas ured inside an' out with my stick an' discovered that thar was a double flue in this chimney." Abner leaned over the burning pine and touched the stone behind it, and laughed. "Yes, sir, back o' them rocks thar was another flue, an' I knpwed the fire that made the smoke was down below some'r's. Purty soon I heard a hammerin' an' a squeakin' un der me, like somebody drivin' an' screwin' a fawcett in the head of a empty barrel. Then I seed the whole thing as clear as a flash. Thar was a sort o' cave below. You fellers had discovered it an' built yore cabin over the openin' to hide it from view. Thar is an underground stream o' water which youuns has been thinkin' all these years emptied, I reckon, into the bottomless pit, in spite o' the Script ure to the contrary, notwithstanding but which, by hunkey, has been sp'ilin' one o' the best springs o' water that--"
" Damn you--'' Clegg suddenly sprang up, draw ing a revolver and cocking it in Abner's face--" damn you, I'll--"

14

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"Put it down! put it down! Don't be a fool," Daniel laughed, coolly. "Put that gun down, Joe Clegg; you hain't agoin' to shoot nobody. You could ef you would, the Lord knows, fer I'm unarm ed, an' as I come up here unbeknowenst to a soul 'cept you-uns, you could grind me up in yore cave an' filter me back to fertilize my own land without anybody ever knowin' what become o' me; but you hain't that sort of a man, Clegg. You'll make wild cat whiskey, an' sell it along with yore neighbors, but you hain't a man-killer. You are mad now, but that '11 blow over when you've had time to re flect."
"By God! you hain't got no business a-nosin' round my cabin, sayin' you've discovered this an' that, an', an'--"
Abner laughed as he put out his long hand and coolly knocked Clegg's revolver to the floor. "What's fair fer one's fair fer t'other, Joe," he said. "You had no business sp'ilin' my spring. Now cool off, an' let's git down to rock bottom. Why, Joe, I actually cut off that spring, an' let "weeds an' bulrushes grow up all round it fer yore sake. When folks passed that way a-huntin', I told 'em they'd better not drink out'n it, that it had some sort o' deadly mineral in it. They say rot-gut is deadly to some, so I reckon I didn't commit the unpardonable sin."
" Well, I don't like it--I don't like it!" Clegg said, sullenly.
"I don't see what harm I'm agoin' to do you," argued Abner. "I hain't agoin' to say a word. A lots o' mountain men I know are makin' moonshine,
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an' I set by 'era at rneetin', sing out'n the same book, an' never throw it up to 'em. It may seem wrong to the outside world; but them that's makin' whis key in these mountains don't believe it's wrong, an' until they think so I reckon they hain't the wust in creation. Somehow, I don't feel like the Almighty would 'a' made sech a bang-up secret whiskey plant as this ef He'd not intended it to be put to a use; an' the Yankee government hain't paid me to act the spy on home folks. So, boys, I'm here to tell you that yore secret's safe as fur 's I'm concerned. Though some day, when you are all cooler, I'd like to put up an argument, on general lines, agin workin' so much in a damp place all the year around. You all show it in yore looks. You need sunlight an' outside exercise to open the pores o' yore skin an' let the sperit o' God in an' temptation out. Not one of you's got rich at it--you hain't made a dollar more'n them has who jest farm it fer a livin', an' they go fishin' more, an' to singin'-school, to meetin', ail' other places o' entertainment."
Abner ceased speaking. He put out the crook of his stick, and, calmly smiling, began to draw Clegg's fallen revolver towards him. The moonshiner put his foot on it, glaring half angrily, half hesitatingly, but not attempting to pick it up.
"What you want with my pistol?" he snapped. "Jest don't want you to fool with it, Joe," Abner laughed. "Take away yore foot!" Glegg pressed all the firmer on the weapon, and Abner raised his stick, and, with a jovial laugh, be gan to tap, at first gently* and then harder and harder, on Clegg's ankle-bone.
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"Take it off, Joe!" he laughed; "take it off! I'll knock the bark off yore shin ef you don't."
Clegg gave in sheepishly. It was as if he were ashamed to act in a sportive manner over such a serious matter, and yet it was not in his heart to quarrel with the old jester. Abner picked up the revolver and held it in his hands, and Clegg, in the dead silence of the cabin, went to the door and looked out, a man without a resource. Mrs. Clegg tapped on the stone hearth with her pipe and emptied it, and then she put it into the pocket of her skirt. She looked at no one. Stooping forward, she put out her steady, talon-like fingers, and heaped up the chunks of pine.
"Well, thar's one thing I want to know," Clegg suddenly demanded, " an' that is, what you come away up here to-night fer?"
" To keep you fellers from bein' sorry the rest o' yore lives," said Abner.
" Huh!" Clegg was staring; the three other shag gy heads in the room were raised against the wills of the owners. Was Abner about to reveal some plot of the officials to take them dead or alive?
'' I come to save the life of the most miserable fel ler I ever laid eyes on," said Daniel. "Boys, I'm talkin' about Si Warren."
" Oh!" Clegg seemed to regret his exclamation of relief, for he suddenly looked away.
"Yes, boys, I've proved to you that I've been a friend o' yore'n fer five years hand runnin', an' am yet, fer that matter, an' I've got to have yore help. I've seed the time when I could 'a' had this plant bu'sted wide open by revenue men, an' yet I never
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cheeped a word. You know when Judd Barlow, the derndest, sharpest officer that ever lived, was pryin' about in these mountains ? He told everybody that he suspicioned you-uns was a-makin' whiskey, an' that he'd probe the mystery to the bottom. He come to my house one night a-chucklin'. Said he, ' Daniel, I'm agoin' to close in on that Clegg lay-out to-night, an' locate the'r still.'
" I said, ' Is that so, Judd?' An' he let in to tellin' how he knowed in reason that liquor was made some'r's in a mile o' this cabin, an' he was goin' with his gang to beat every foot o' woods an' rocks till he run it up a tree." Abner laughed reminiscently. " They was at it two days, you remember, an' ever' time they'd run agin a snag, they ud come here to this cabin an' set right over it an' try to pump you-uns. Well, I knowed then what I do now, but I didn't let on. He'd 'a' paid me a cool hundred dol lar William fer the information, but I wasn't fer sale. Now, I'm that sort o' friend o' yore'n, Joe, an' yet I reckon I'll have to git down on my knees to ax jest fer a man's life, a pore devil that's never harmed me or you. An,' by gum! ef thar is any truth in what the preachers say about all departed souls givin' account at the bar above, you fellers '11 have a special session called up thar to pass on yore responsibility in this matter; fer ef Warren dies inno cent, you'll be the cause of it, an' I reckon yore liquor done its part in makin' 'im commit the deed --so thar you are."
"What the hell do I know about Warren?" Clegg said, doggedly.
"Know about 'im?" Abner smiled. "Well, I'll 203

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tell you, Joe. You see, Si claims Abe Wilson would testify that the deed, was done in self-defence."
" I've heard some'n' on that line," Clegg admitted, after a pause, "but what have we-uns--"
"Some of yore lay-out has simply scared Wilson to death," declared Abner, standing up and carelessly placing the revolver in an old clock on the mantel piece, closing the glass door, and folding his hands behind him. "Abe knows about this still o' yore'n, ef he wasn't one of yore gang, an' when he heard he was goin' to be summoned to testify fer Si War ren, some o' you-uns made 'im believe ef he was to appear at court they'd send 'im up fer whiskeymakin' or some'n' wuss."
"I hain't seed Abe Wilson in no tellin' when," Clegg said. "You are away off thar, Daniel--away off!"
"Well," said Abner, " thar's no use wastin' wind over it. I know you-uns could do me the favor if you wanted to. Ef I could see Abe one minute I could talk 'im out o' all his fears, an' I could guar antee 'im, too, that the court ud not give 'im the least trouble. Scripture says, ' The wicked flee when no man pursueth '--that's all thar is to this business. All of you are jest afraid o' yore shadows, but I'm here to tell you that after that innocent man dies at the end o' the rope there'll be a shadow a-standin' at the foots o' yore beds ever' night the rest o' yore lives. Whiskey-makin' contrary to legal formality is one thing, but lettin' an innocent feller die on the scaffold is another proposition."
Abner walked to the door, and Clegg moved to one side as he stepped out into the open air.
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"Shucks!" said Abner, finality in his voice and manner but not in his mind, "you-uns don't know which side yore bread's buttered on, turnin' agin as good an' stanch a friend as I've been!"
He was striding away, when Clegg, quite as Ab ner expected, called out to him:
"Wait thar a minute!" The moonshiner turned his head back into the cabin and said something Daniel could not hear. There was a hurried mum bling of men's voices, broken by that of a woman; then Clegg came down the path. He laid his hand on Abner's arm.
"Say, Ab," he began, sheepishly, "to tell you the truth, jest betwixt me 'n' you, I don't know but what Clem an' Alf did sort o' scare Abe a little. I don't say they have or haven't, but they are scared half to death the'rselves mighty nigh all the time, an' used to talk a lots 'fore 'im. Abe did hang around us some, helped git corn, an' he hauled a barrel an' load o' jugs to town once or twice; I remember, the day Si was arrested, he told us Buford had pulled down on Si fust, an' that Si ducked an' got out his own gun an' fired. The next day Abe left. His wife come up here a-lookin' fer 'im."
"An' you know whar he is, dern yore lazy hide!" Abner said, adroitly. "Joe, don't keep me waitin' here all night."
Clegg was looking back at the square of light formed by the open door of the cabin.
" I cayn't say whar he is now, Abner," he declared, "but the last time we heard from 'im he was with his old friend Tom Oozencraft, out at Denison, Texas. Tom's out thar workin' in the railroad
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round-house, an' Abe j'ined 'im soon after he left here. Ef you went thar you could git trace of 'im, anyway."
"Well, I'll go," Abner answered. "I kin con vince Abe thar hain't a thing to fear, an' he'll help me out."
" He is jest crazy to git back here, anyway," said Clegg. " He's a great home man, an' this is the fust time he's ever left his wife. She's as mad as hell over the whole business. I've been afeard she'd talk too much. I don't know but what it ud be better fer us all round to have Abe back an' git over this business."
Abner held out his hand and clasped that of Clegg.
"I'm much obleeged fer the information," he said. " You'll be glad you give it to me some day, Joe."
Clegg held on to Daniel's fingers. " An' you hain't agoin' to give us trouble about--" Clegg jerked his thumb towards the cabin.
"Hain't agoin' to force you to a thing -- not a thing, Joe," Abner replied, seriously, "but, as I said jest now, some o' these days I'm agoin' to prove to all three of you that you are on the wrong track. I'm agoin' to show you whar you kin make more money an' sleep sounder. I've been intendin' to do it all along, but couldn't somehow git to it."
They parted. Abner strode down the steep path and Clegg turned back to the cabin.
Reaching home, the old man lighted a lamp, got out his pen and ink, and wrote a note.
" DEAR ERIC," [it ran]--" I dropped onto information that Abe W. is or was at Denison, Texas, awhile back. I will
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take the south-bound, at four in the morning, and will write you perticulars. I won't have time to see you before going, as I would miss the first train, and I want to do what can be done as quick as possible to set Warren's mind at rest. Don't bother. I have enough cash to run me. I will stick this in the post-office at the store as I pass. Let's hope for luck.
"Yours truly,
"ABNER DANIEL."

XXII

IARLTON BLATHWAIT met the wm-

' stons again sooner than he expect-

\ ed. He happened, one day, to be in

} Charleston, South Carolina, at the lead-

__

j ing hotel, when he saw a notice in one

of the papers that they were visiting the city. In

deed, he and they were staying in the same house.

Pressing business occupied him all that day, but on

his returning to the hotel at dusk he was told that

the Winstons were receiving callers in their own

private parlor. Blathwait .sent up his card, and a

porter directed him to the apartment.

Miss Winston was at the tea-table, and rose to

greet him with a smile of welcome.

"You are just a minute too late to meet father

and mother," she said. "Governor Trabue came

to take them for a drive to the Battery. We've

been in all the afternoon, and have received a reg

ular swarm of people."

Blathwait expressed his regrets at missing the old

people, and was presented to two other callers, an

elderly lady, Miss Craigmiles, and a young man, who

bore the reputation of being a sort of leader in the

society of the city, a Mr. Blanton. Like Blathwait,

these visitors had only just arrived, and so they were

all given tea together.

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" I "was just telling Miss Winston how proud we are of the general," Miss Craigmiles remarked to Blathwait, as they all sat down. " I hope you are a Southerner, too, Mr. Blathwait."
"Oh, quite, I assure you!" Blathwait answered. " Then I can speak freely, without stepping on any body's toes," laughed the lady, " and that is certain ly a comfort in the present day, when our enter prises are drawing so many from the North into our midst. For my part, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Rebel, and don't think I fade in ordinary washing. I like Northern people, but I do wish they would stop criticising the South. Why, at Judge Pardee's re ception the other night, a lady--I say lady, because I was taught to call every woman a lady to whom I was properly introduced -- a lady from Boston was there, and she sat up and said that she had not met a single individual - in the South who did not talk like a negro. Think of that! She remarked a moment later"---Miss Craigmiles laughed out sud denly--'' that she thought the manners of the Charles ton ladies were cold and reserved. Do you wonder at it? Four of us were round her at the time--four Charleston icebergs, all boiling inside." Blathwait and Miss Winston laughed, and Mr. Blanton had the appearance of a man who had been so intent on something he had to say that he had missed the point. "They dearly love to hit us," he said. "I asked a New York man at the club the other night to take a drink with me, and he accepted with what he con sidered a compliment. He said he had noticed that I did not use the expression you-all in the singular.
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I told him I had never heard it used that way, even by the most uneducated, and he argued with me for half an hour over it. Later, in the most casual way, he asked me if I had ever attended a lynching. I told him"--Blanton smiled as he returned his tea cup to the table--'' that I had somehow failed to get good seats at the most important affairs of the kind, and that I never went to a place of amusement without being thoroughly comfortable."
The group all laughed at this, and then the con versation somehow drifted round to the subject of genealogy.
"All my friends say I'm a genealogical crank," Miss Craigmiles remarked. "It is the most fascinat ing study in the world, and the funny thing about my interest in it is that the history of other families interests me quite as much as my own. Have you ever studied genealogy, Miss Winston?"
Miss Winston, Blathwait thought, flushed slightly, and hesitated an instant before answering in the negative.
" But you have, of course, been interested in your own f" Miss Craigmiles pursued.
Blathwait was now quite sure that there was a flush on the girl's face, and that it deepened in the moment of unexpected silence that fell before the answer came.
" No, I have not studied it, Miss Craigmiles," Miss Winston said, her face slightly turned away.
"Just think of it!" the elderly lady exclaimed, reproachfully. " What's the present generation coming to? Oh, my dear child! I can't claim you even as a remote relative, and yet I know the Win-
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ston lineage almost back to the Revolution, and if I had my Burke's Landed Gentry here I could cross the ocean on a branch of your tree, and go back to heaven only knows where. Why, my child, there is no better family on earth than yours! You'll forgive me for being so personal, won't you? But in every generation your men have been brave and brainy leaders, my child--leaders in war, in State affairs, and literature. And your women have been renowned for their common - sense, wit, and great beauty, and they have been belles, too! Ah, my dear, when you came in the room just now and I saw your beautiful face, proud, erect figure, and your glorious hair, I felt proud of you--proud that you have honored old Charleston with a visit, and that wouhraty--ou''ng girls may see in you an example of
"Oh, don't, please don't, Miss Craigmiles!" Miss Winston cried; she raised her hand imploringly, and Blathwait saw that her face had suddenly grown rigid. There was a note of pain in her voice, too, that brought Miss Craigmiles up with a stare of inquiry.
"Why, my child!" she exclaimed; "pardon me if I have been too--"
"Oh, it's all right," Miss Winston said, calmly. " But I, myself, am not worthy of what you say. I shall have to explain something that only the most intimate friends of my--of General and Mrs. Win ston know. They want as many as possible to think I am their child, but I am not; I am only an adopted daughter."
"Oh, dear, do forgive me!" cried Miss Craig-

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miles. " It was very stupid of me. I wouldn't have touched upon such a topic for the world, if I had dreamt--"
" I know that, Miss Craigmiles," the girl said, with a smile and a return of at least a portion of her for mer ease and grace, "but I really could not take to myself so much that is not mine. The truth is, I was a very poor and very unfortunate girl when the general and Mrs. Winston found me ill and in need of friends, and finally gave me a home. My own mother died when I was a child. My fa.ther -- a poor, humble man -- is still living, but I have not seen him in a long time."
Miss Craigmiles, with a look of deep distress on her gentle old face, rose without a word and bent over the girl and kissed her. Her voice quivered as she said:
" One of the salient characteristics of the Winstons, my dear, has always been keen penetration and good judgment, and your foster-parents knew they had discovered a jewel in you."
The girl smiled agreeably, and Miss Craigmiles sat down by her, now holding her hand.
" You are a Georgian, are you not, Mr. Blathwait?" Blanton asked, in the sudden lull in the conversa tion, and on Blathwait's replying that he was, Blan ton continued:
"I'm sorry to have to admit that your State is forging ahead of ours in some things; we are cling ing more to old customs here, but you are commer cially; more progressive. Socially, too, your people don't ask the world any odds. I never think of your State without recalling a young man from up
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there that was the greatest' sport' I ever saw. Did you ever meet Eric Vaughn?"
"I know him quite well," Blathwait answered. "Oh, you do? Well, he's a Napoleon, when it comes to throwing money away and having a royal time. I've heard hundreds of stories about his pranks and recklessness. A man at the club the other night was telling about how Vaughn tossed one thousand dollar bills on a gaming-table in Galveston, one night, and backed down two million aires with their pockets full of cash. The funniest thing, though, was a tale of a social lark Vaughn played up in Atlanta. He had a rival, it seems, in a young railroad president. A married lady, a friend of the two, was looking for some young ladies to visit her from Virginia, and her set was spreading itself to get up unique entertainments in their hon or. The railroad president, when the visitors ar rived, took them in a party in his private car all over the South, and it was considered a fine idea, for they put up at the best hotels, and were inter viewed by all the papers. When they got back to Atlanta, some one dared Eric Vaughn to eclipse his rival, and it is reported that he did it in fine shape. He heard of the big five-hundred-room swell hotel at Dabney Springs being closed for the winter. He saw the proprietor, rented it for a month, called in the entire force of servants, hired a big orchestra, employed an expert wine man, and a chef that had done duty at Newport and was South for his health, and invited a big party of men and women, and they ran the house. But they suffered for it. The gos sips fed on them for months afterwards. They
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told some awful stories of what the young ladies did."
" Did you ever!" exclaimed Miss Craigmiles. " He must be an awful young man. I've heard of him."
"It cost him a fortune," Blanton laughed; "but they say he'd just made a pile of money on a turn in cotton, and didn't care what became of it. Oh, they had chaperons, Miss Winston!" Blanton turned to his hostess, who seemed unaccountably silent, '' and it was said to have been conducted in a decent sort of way, but, of course, a thing like that will cause talk. Vaughn is as famous in his way as Beau Brummel was in his. I've heard he was a great breaker of hearts. Women don't seem to be able to resist him."
Blathwait was on the point of trying to put up a defence for his absent friend, but found no chance to do so, for Miss Winston had addressed some re mark to Miss Craigmiles, and it was very obvious that she wished to change the subject. Very soon both Miss Craigmiles and her escort took their leave.
The room was quite dark by this time, and Blath wait could not clearly see Miss Winston's face, when she turned back to him after accompanying her guests to the door.
" Shall I ring for lights?" he asked her, but to his astonishment she made no response, and he fancied he heard her sigh as she sat down again at the teatable. For a moment he felt that she had quite for gotten his presence. Then she drew herself to gether and looked at him.
"I think I have a slight headache," she said, 214

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wearily. " I am not good at entertaining callers,

Mr. Blathwait." "I think you are quite the reverse," he said, gal
lantly. " I think you deserve a special reward for going through all that so patiently."

"They meant well," said the girl; "and so I can't

bear a grudge against them."

"Mr. Blanton made some remarks that I did not

like to let pass," Blathwait said. " This Eric Vaughn,

of whom he had so much to say, is a friend of mine, and--"

"What!" broke in Miss Winston, with a start, her eyes widening," you--you say he is a friend of yours?"
"Yes, I have known him for quite a while, Miss Winston, and while it is easy for such reports to get

into circulation as Mr. Blanton has just--"

"Mr. Blathwait," the girl rose and stood before

him, her lips drawn tight, her voice low and un steady--"Mr. Blathwait, will you do me a favor?"
"Most gladly, Miss Winston," he replied, in star

tled concern. He thought she was ill, for her hand, which rested on the table, seemed limp and yielding as she leaned upon it.
"Then please don't ever mention Mr. Vaughn's name to me under any circumstances, or endeavor to apologize for him or his conduct."

"Why, certainly, Miss Winston," Blathwait said, in bewilderment. "It was only because this Mr. Blanton--''

"I'd rather you'd talk of something else, please,"

the girl broke in again, this time in a most pleading and helpless voice. " Do remember what I've asked

you."

is

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At this juncture voices were heard in the corridor. The general and Mrs. Winston were returning from their drive.
" They will be glad to see you," Miss Winston said, and she moved towards the door.
"I've made an ass of myself--all of us have!" Blathwait muttered, as he bit his mustache, and stood ready to meet the old people.

XXIII
?NE night, about a week after his de, parture, Abner Daniel returned. He > had telegraphed Eric to meet him at } Darley, and the young man was at the _ _ _J seven-o'clock north-bound train when it stopped in the antiquated brick car-shed. The en terprising proprietor of the Johnston House had con trived an original means of lighting the open space in front of his establishment. It consisted of a post in the ground, from which extended an iron arm supporting a wire basket, which was filled with pieces of resinous pine, saturated with kerosene-oil. Darley was a supper - station, and the instant the trains were heard approaching, the mass was lighted by a negro porter, who at once grasped an enormous brass gong and began to sound it as the hungry pas sengers alighted, looked about them, and hastened towards the hotel. It was in this red flare that Eric beheld his old friend, as he stepped down from the smoking-car, his oilcloth valise in hand and his long overcoat on his arm. He was in his best attire, a new black frockcoat, new felt hat, exactly the same make and size as those he had worn ever since the war, and a neat black necktie. "Had your supper?" Eric asked, as a porter grabbed Abner's valise and started oft with it.
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" Not a bite since twelve o'clock, an' you bet I could eat a barbecued steer," the old man laughed. " Some say ridin' on the cars knocks up the'r ap petite--by gum! it seems to shake ever'thing out'n me the minute I put it in."
"Well, we'll eat together," Eric said. "I've re served a little table in the corner of the dining-room so we won't be disturbed. I'm crazy to hear what you did."
They were going up the hotel steps in a throng of passengers, and Abner made no response till they were seated at the table. All around them was a rush of colored waiters, the clatter of glasses, dishes, and knives and forks.
"Well, I made a straight shoot fer Denison," Ab ner began. " Landed thar about ten o'clock Thurs day, an' registered. It's a wide-open town, Eric, a gamblin', cow-boy town, about five miles from Red River, that cuts it off from the Injun Territory. The town's got what they call the ' White Elephant' --a gamblin', keno shebang on a giant scale; then thar's the all-day leg show, whar they dance the tin-can, with a bar an' pool-room attached. It was all new to me, an' a bang-up place fer a young man to have a good time. The fust night I got to bed late, after bummin' round with a feller that I met on the train. I had jest got to sleep when I had a big scare. Gun an' pistol shots was a-firin' all round the house. I woke with a jump into the mid dle o' the floor, an' in the dark I couldn't find my pants. I 'lowed we was surrounded by redskins, but it turned out to be a Texas fire-alarm. Every man thar totes a gun, in bed an' out, an' whenever a fire
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breaks out they all git to shootin' to make a noise. It's a good plan ef yo're used to it."
"Did you see anything of Wilson?" Eric asked, as the waiter was placing their supper before them.
"Looky here," said Abner to the negro, and he pushed his cup of coffee aside; "you fetch me a bigger cup'n that un. I want some coffee. Ef you hain't got a bigger -white un bring a tin un. I have trouble on that score every time I stop here."
"All right, suh," said the negro, with a smile at Eric. " I got jest what you want, suh."
" Well, I cayn't say that I seed Wilson," Abner an swered. " I'm sorry to have to confess it, but I didn't. Howsomever, I did the next best thing; I run across his trail, an' I'm still on it. I found his chum, Tom Oozencraft, in the railroad shops. Tom seemed power ful tickled to see me. I knowed 'im when he was farmin' it over on Holly Creek, an' I think he is home sick fer these mountains. I say he was tickled, but the minute I mentioned Abe Wilson he shet up like a pair o' pinchers, an' started to his work, greasin' a engine. He said he hadn't seed head nor tail o' him. I knowed better, an' sorter steered off'n the subject awhile, till I got in his confidence, an' then, easy-like, I led up to Wilson ag'in. I told 'im Abe was the only man alive that could do me a certain favor, an' that I'd be in a awful hole ef I didn't run across 'im. Then I up an' told 'im about Si Warren, an' jest how the matter stood back here, an' I seed Tom was inter ested. He quit greasin' his piston-rod, an' set down on a tool-box by me, an' listened while I piled it on thick. Ef Warren could induce the Lord to believe all I told Oozencraft that da}^, he'd have a pair o' wings
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long enough to wrap around his legs. It fetched Oozencraft; he was black an' greasy, an' didn't look much like a man in his dirty overalls, but hu manity showed through his grime, like pond-lilies in a mud puddle. He began to sorter wipe his eyes, an' rub more black on his cheeks. Then he throwed down his bunch o' wipin' rags, pitched his long, goose-necked oil-can in the tool-box, an' begun to cuss Wilson fer runnin' off like he did.
" ' You are agoin' to have a hell of a time ketchin' Abe,' said he.
"'What makes you think so?' said I. "'Beca'se,' said he, 'betwixt me 'n' you, Daniel, the damn fool is scared out'n his socks; he'd run like a dog with a tin can to his tail; he'd run from a passle o' Methodist preachers tryin' to save his soul from torment; he hain't wantin' to dicker with no body--he suspicions everything, alive or dead; he's fer number one. Ef he's done anything wrong back in Georgy, I don't know what it was, but he's the oneasiest, homesickest feller I ever seed. He stayed at my house while he was here, but he was up at all hours o' the night lookin' out o' his window, an' rollin' an' tumblin' in bed.' " "So you failed to find him there?" Eric said, as Daniel paused, and drank from his enormous cup. "Yes, but I got on the scent. Oozencraft finally told me that Abe had gone on to New York. He knowed a man thar, Jeff Pickens, that used to be in his company in the war. Jeff had married a Yan kee woman, an' when her daddy died he went thar to foller his trade--shoemakin' an' repairin'. Oozen-
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craft said Jeff an' Abe had exchanged some letters, an' that he believed I'd find Abe thar."
" So that's why you went to New York," said Eric. "Yes, an' my folks is thar, you know, my nephew, Alan Bishop, an' my niece. I put up with them. Of course, I never let on what my business was, an' they 'lowed it was jest a visit. I was a long time findin' Pickens's shop; he'd moved a time or two, an' never left no trace. Finally I found him in a lit tle hole in a basement, away over on the East Side o' the city. He didn't want to talk, nuther, an' I got mad. Seemed like folks was givin' me a lot o' work to do. I wasn't mealy-mouthed with him. I was tired workin' that racket, an' I shot logic into 'im so hot an' heavy fer about five minutes that he wilted. I told 'im I could prove he was correspondin' with Abe Wilson, an' I sorter pretended to be lookin' over a batch o' letters I had, "while I went on to tell 'im ef he didn't tell me whar Wilson was, I'd handle him fer hidin' a man out from the law, an' take both of 'em back to Georgia in chains. I was talkin' through my hat; but what I said lifted that shoemaker clean out'n his leather seat, an' he got down to business. He said he didn't have nothin' to do with Wilson, that he'd literally bored 'im an' his wife to death, cryin' an' goin' on about wantin' to git back home, an' bein' afeard o' the conse quences, an' that they finally persuaded 'im that he'd be safer an' feel better back in the mountains." "And he is here!" Eric exclaimed. "You think he is here?" '' Yes,'' Abner replied, reflectively. '' The Pickenses lent 'im the money to come home on, an' I have an
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idea that he's some'r's in the mountains not fur from his home an' wife. He's the sort o' feller that '11 feel safer under a woman's petticoat than anywhars else, an' in time o' danger will run thar like a rat; but he'll be the devil to ketch. He will certainly be on the lookout. I run across a bit o' information about yore daddy's friend, Bowman, too, but that kin rest awhile. I may ax that feller a question or two one o' these days."
"He and my father are thicker than ever," Eric said. "They had a high-priced architect here from Atlanta yesterday, drawing up plans. The whole town is mad about the location. From all appear ances it is to be the finest building in this part of the State. There is no use objecting, Uncle Abner, my father will have his own way."
"If he don't look out he'll wish he'd never laid eyes on Bowman," Abner said, significantly.
" You don't think the fellow's a fraud, do you, Uncle Abner?"
"I'll tell you what I think some other time." Daniel evaded the question. " My boy, I had stacks an' stacks o' fun on that trip. What you think? I got my fare down to half-price from New Orleans clean to Denison."
"You don't mean it!" Eric laughed. " How was that?"
"Scalper's ticket. I never done sech a thing be fore ; but you said you was goin' to pay my expenses, an' I determined to save all I could. I was green on the subject, an'jest happened to meet two old friends o' mine, Sid Mayhew an' his wife, in New Orleans. They told me they was on the way to Texas, an'
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was goin' to buy half-price scalper's tickets, an' axed me to come on with 'em to the feller's office. Down thar the scalper, a slick sort o' chap, got out the tickets, an' explained to us that they was all right. He said they'd been issued to other parties, who had been required to sign the'r names on the backs of 'em. ' But,' said he, ' not one conductor in a hundred will even look at the signature; howsomever, ef one was to happen to ax you to write the name to show it's yore'n, why, it ud be a good idea fer you to sorter practise a little 'fore you start.' Well, Sid an' his wife decided to resk it, an' I thought ef a woman could, I could, even ef I was kicked off n the train, so we all bought. The Mayhews had a soft snap. The'r tickets was made out to Mr. James Smith an' Mrs. James Smith. Almost anybody could pass under them names; but mine was different. Mine must 'a' belonged to some Jew drummer, fer it was signed I. Einstein. It was the only one the scalper had to Denison. I felt weak-kneed, but I planked up my money with the balance, an' we all set to work, while waiting fer the train, to copyin' our new names. My man wrote the derndest fist on earth, an' I felt like I never was goin' to write a decent hand ag'in, but I kept at it till train-time. We got in our seats an' started. I confess, fer one o' the chosen race, I felt as little like I deserved special distinction as a man could. We was a whizzin' along when the new Mrs. Smith, settin' right behind me, leant over an' said: ' Looky here, Uncle Ikey, I never seed as green a-lookin' Israelite as you are in all my life; you'd better, ef the conductor looks surprised, tell 'im you are an Einstein only by adoption.'
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: " Well, Eric, I'm here to tell you I felt quar when I eed the conductor come in at the front door an' begin to take up tickets. Whenever he'd strike a long green un like mine he'd draw out a pencil an' a pad an' shove it under the passenger's nose. I never felt as much like a convict in my life; but I was in the game. When he got to me, I give a sorter sleepy yawn as I forked over my ticket, an' axed 'im what time we was due in Denison. He didn't say nothin'. He turned the ticket over an' seed the name on it, an' then he looked me up an' down an' laughed.
"'What's yore name?' he axed, sudden-like. "'Einstein,' said I; 'what mought be yore'n?' " ' Clark,' said he, sorter tuck back, but still lookin' fust at me an' then at the name. " ' I'm glad to make yore acquaintance, Mr. Clark,' said I; ' you didn't tell me what time we was due in
Denison.' " He'didn't answer, but he got out his pad an'
pencil an' stuck 'em at me. "'I'll have to ax you to write yore name here,'
he said. "I dashed it off in a hurry, an' handed it up to
'im. 'I could beat that all holler,' I said, ' ef your dern train wasn't a-wigglin' at sech a rate.'
'' He grinned sorter dubious as he compared the two writin's, an' then he passed on to my friends. They got through all right. In fact, he didn't ax 'em to write at all. Looked like he thought ef a specimen like me could-sail under a Mosaic title like mine, an Albino could pass as a full-blooded African. But he was suspicious, an' the dern fool seemed to be enjoyin' it as a big joke. I seed 'im tellin' the
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news-butch' about it, an' after he'd tuck up all the tickets he come back to me an' axed me ef I was in the clothin' business. I thought I'd give 'im as good as he sent, an' I told 'im, no, that I was a Meth odist preacher, an' he went off, an' him an' the newsbutch' had a hearty laugh. About a hour after that we struck a little town whar a old friend o' mine, Judge Gate, lived, an' I went out on the car-steps to look about, when who should I see on the plat form but the judge hisse'f, a-comin' towards me. He seed me, too, an' I actually broke an' run back into the train, fer the conductor was nigh me, an' I was afeared the judge would call me by name before 'im. The train started while my friend was tryin' to climb in to whar I was, an' I felt thankful to see 'im left behind. I went back in the train an' set down. I was earnin' t'other half o' that fare about as fast as I ever made money in my life; an' I wouldn't 'a' missed seein' Judge Gate fer anything. About two hours later I seed the conductor comin' in the car with a bunch o' papers in his hand, an' a yaller telegram. He was stoppin' an' axin' ever' man thar some question, an' they was all shakin' the'r heads. He come on to me.
" ' I cayn't understand this, Mr. Einstein,' said he. ' I've got a telegram here fer some feller by name o' Abner Daniel. I've been from end to end o' my train, an' cayn't find no sech individual.'
"Gee whiz! he had me. I knowed 'twasn't no trap, beca'se he couldn't 'a' had my rail name, an' I seed 'Abner Daniel' in plain writin' on the envelope. Hell was to play, I thought. I 'lowed maybe you'd got track o' Wilson, in some other direction, an' then
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ag'in, I thought maybe some o' my kin was dead or my house an' barn in ashes. It rattled me awful, but I didn't say nothin'. The conductor went off lookin' fer me, an' I slid over to Sid an' his wife, an' told 'im my predicament. It scared Sid mighty nigh out'n his boots, but he told me, fer all I done, not to let on. An' ef I was arrested not to say I knowed him an' his wife. He said I mought be handled for forgery, an' he wouldn't want to testify agin me.
"I went back an' tuck my seat, about the wust disturbed man in any o' the country we was a whizzin' through. Purty soon the conductor come along ag'in, an' told me he'd been through his whole crew to see ef thar was a Daniel amongst 'em, but narry one, white or black, was to be had. He still helt his stack o' papers in his hand, an' when the engine begun to whistle down-brakes, like the devil givin' a war-whoop, he laid the bundle down on the seat by me an' run ahead to look out of a window; an' while he was a-peepin' out at a cow that was lopin' 'long the track, I noticed the flap o' the tele graph envelope was jest barely stuck down, an' quick as a flash I slid my finger under it an' had it open. It wasn't but a line, but I read it. I put the sheet back, give the gum a swipe across my tongue, an' sealed 'er tight. I was tyin' my shoe un der the seat when he come back an' tuck his bundle. It wasn't nothin' but a line from Judge Gate, sayin' he was sorry not to see me, an' invitin' me to stop with 'im on my way back. Ef I hadn't been guilty I'd 'a' thought o' him at fust; but a man that's doin' wrong will always fear the wust, an' look fer it whar it hain't."
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Eric laughed, highly pleased to see his old friend in such a good humor.
" You certainly were in a tight place, to get out as well as you did," he said.
" I was that, but I had my fun. I thought once I'd bet the conductor ten dollars that I could tell what was in the telegram, but Sid wouldn't let me."
Abner had been trying to cut a rather tough piece of steak on his plate, and he suddenly ceased, and, holding his knife by the handle, he beckoned with it to the negro waiter.
"Say, gutta-percha," he said, when the servant leaned over him. " Will you please take this steak back an' fetch me a piece that '11 bend? This ox seems to 'a' been petrified."
As they were going out into the hotel office a few minutes later, Eric asked him if he had engaged a room.
"No, I'm goin' to spend the night at yore pa's," Abner answered. " I promised yore ma ef I ever stayed in town ag'in I'd go thar. Besides, my boy, I want to git another look at that feller Bowman. He's knowed better out in Texas 'an he is here!"

XXIV
Abner arrived at the Vaughns', ^ he met Mrs. Vaughn on the walk just } inside the gate. As they shook hands \ she noticed his valise. __ ______ "I hear you've been to New York," she said. "How did you find your kinspeople?" "About as common," he made answer; "they seem to like it purty well up thar." They walked on to the veranda, and Abner put his valise down on the step. " I suppose you are not thinking of leaving the South?" the old lady said, tentatively. " Not by a long jump," Abner said, emphatically. " God's country's good enough fer me. Them streets was hot enough, while I was thar, to fry a pancake.
Is Henry at home?" "Yes, in the sitting-room with Mr. Bowman." "Still buildin' that college?" "Yes, getting ready for it. I had hoped when
Eric went out to his place and set to work, as he has, that it would touch his father's sympathies; but he says it is a trick. Mr. Bowman put that idea into
his head." "Thar hain't no trick about Eric's work, Mrs.
Vaughn," Abner said, warmly. "You kin count on that--the boy has simply started in to run that
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place right, and he'll do it, encouragement or no en couragement. I predict that he'll make it more 'n pay expenses."
"Uncle Lewis told me about him," Mrs. Vaughn sighed, "and nothing has ever wrung my heart as that did. Do you know"--she lowered her voice, half-covered her lips with her thin, white hand, and glanced furtively towards the window of the lighted sitting-room--" when I heard how lonely the poor boy was over there, ^ and how he often came home at night so tired that he fell asleep in his chair on the veranda while Lewis was preparing his supper-- when Lewis told me that, Mr. Daniel, I packed up some things and started over there to spend a week; but Mr. Vaughn almost had a spasm, he was so furi ous. He told me if I went that he'd leave me for good, and he meant it."
"The old scamp!" Abner ejaculated. "I gave in to him," Mrs. Vaughn continued, plaintively. " Nobody alive can turn him from his purpose, and it would have caused a scandal, and have hurt Eric more than being alone. I sup pose I love my husband as much as I ever did--love never seems the same to old people as to the young and hopeful--but if I had to give up one of them, I'd take my child every time, and not regret the choice." "The old bull-headed scamp!" was all that Abner could say. They were now on the veranda, and heard footsteps in the house. The next moment Vaughn appeared in the doorway, followed by Bow man. Vaughn raised his heavy brows in surprise, held out his hand in a perfunctory manner, and grasped Abner's in a cold, careless clasp.

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" Howdy do?" he said. " Been off some'r's, hain't you?"
"Round about generally," Abner answered. Bowman came forward with an elusive smile, and held out his hand. "How's Brother Daniel?" he asked, lightly. But Abner pretended not to see the movement of his hand or hear the greeting. He stooped and lifted his valise from the step to a place on the veranda floor. But Bowman was undaunted; his equanimity was a thing he always had with him. " Been to New York, I hear, Brother Daniel," he pursued. "Yes, to New York." Abner's tone was almost that of open contempt. A servant came to the door, and Mrs. Vaughn or dered her to take Abner's valise to a room up-stairs. It gave Bowman and Vaughn an opportunity--if they needed any-- to move along to the far end of the veranda. " Who cares what a lot of sore-headed, spiteful Rebels say about the location?" Abner heard Bow man saying, warmly. " If a lot of stuck-up paupers are too good to join land with the campus of as fine an institute as that, they can move out of town." Mrs. Vaughn cautiously led her guest to the other end of the veranda. Abner could hear the less in sistent tones of Vaughn in reply, but could not catch his words. Besides, Mrs. Vaughn was speaking. " Sit down," she said; " I want to talk to you. We are having an awful time over this thing," she went on, as they took chairs. " Nearly all my friends
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have stopped visiting me, and my brothers have

written, urging me to leave my husband. They can

see no reason or justice in Mr. Vaughn's giving away

all his means in this way."

"I don't think it's treatin' you 'n' Eric right,"

Daniel observed.

"The thing has its amusing side, too," Mrs.

Vaughn said, with a soft little laugh. "You know

my cousin Toby Lincoln, the town clerk. He is

full of mischief, and is always ready for a practical

joke. Well, the other day a young negro came to

town from some Northern school; he was dressed

finer than any young white man I have seen in

many a day. He had on a silk hat and kid gloves,

and told Toby he was looking for employment. Toby

took him back in his office before a lot of by-standers,

and told him that he had got to Darley at the most

opportune moment. He informed the negro that Mr.

Vaughn was looking for a private secretary, but that

he was a most peculiar man; that he was building

the negro college here, and that, while Mr. Vaughn

wanted an educated colored man, he wanted one

that would not be imposed on by the whites, and

one that would insist on social equality on all occa

sions. ' Now,' said Toby, ' when you go up to his

house, don't go around to the back door like other

negroes; if you do, you will not stand a ghost of a

chance to get the position. You must walk right

up to the front door, and ring. Then, when the girl

comes, tell her you want to see Mr. Vaughn, and

walk right into the parlor, on the left hand side of

the hall, and take a seat in the middle of the

room."

*

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"Gee whiz!" Abner laughed, "that's like Toby-- nobody else would ever have thought of it!"
"Toby went on to tell the negro that if Mr. Vaughn ordered him out, he must stand his ground, and refuse to move. Toby said that several appli cants had failed to get the situation on account of their lack of self-respect. Toby told him he was a Union man himself. Think of Toby Lincoln being
for the North!" "With an open wound in his hip, packed full o'
fresh cotton everyday!'' Abner threw in, with a laugh. The feller that wanted the legislature to change his
name jest after the war, an' then decided that ef any name was changed, it ud have to be the President's."
"Well, it created a storm here at the house," Mrs. Vaughn went on. " My husband was in the sittingroom looking over some papers, when Lucy ran in and said that a negro had pushed her out of his way, and gone in the parlor and sat down in a rock ing-chair, and v/as fanning himself with one of my fans. Mr. Vaughn sprang up with an impatient grunt and went to see about it. We heard him thundering out questions, and the negro telling him he'd come to be his private secretary, and would not be imposed on by white people, and I don't know what all. Then the furniture began flying around the room, and through the window we saw the caller picking himself up at the bottom of the veranda steps, and running away as fast as he could. He broke one of the gate hinges and tore the latch off in getting out. Mr. Vaughn came in the room as white as a sheet, and was so mad he couldn't speak
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"Huh! takin' some o' his own medicine!" Abner grunted. " Blood's thicker 'an water, Mrs. Vaughn, an' Henry hain't half as anxious to lift the black race to his own level as he is to the level o' other folks."

XXV

f RESENTLY Mrs. Vaughn rose, saying

} that she was going up to see that Ab-

\ ner's room was put in readiness, and

} he followed to ascertain its location.

_

__

"I don't want to make a mistake

an' run in on Bowman," he said, as he stood in the

doorway of his room a moment later. "I'd as soon

sleep with a dead catfish."

"This is his room, and the best in the house," the

old lady remarked, as she led the way across the hall

to another chamber. " We used to keep it only for

special occasions, such as the visit of the bishop, or

some one of special note; but Mr. Vaughn gave it

to Mr. Bowman, and he has had exclusive use of it

for the last six months."

Abner went into the big room with its capacious,

lace-curtained bay-windows, and its fine old steel

engravings on the white plastered walls, and looked

about him in the light of the shaded lamp on a cen

tre table.

"Don't look a bit like it's bein' used," he said,

reflectively. Then his eyes rested on a closely

packed travelling-bag on the floor, and a strapped

and locked trunk. Abner, to the mild wonderment

of his hostess, went to the old-fashioned wardrobe,

and opened it. It was perfectly bare. He uttered

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a soft exclamation of surprise, and going to the bureau in a corner, he opened the three drawers, one after another. They were all empty.
"He's goin' away," Abner said, a peculiar gleam in his shrewd eyes. " I had no idea that was his intention, Mrs. Vaughn."
" Oh, it's only for a couple of days," Mrs. Vaughn informed him, with a sigh. "He's going to Atlanta early in the morning."
"Only for two days!" Abner stared steadily. "I reckon it's longer 'n that, Mrs. Vaughn. He's evi dently ready to stay awhile. You see he's packed ever' scrap an' dud he's got."
" He did say he'd need his trunk down there," Mrs. Vaughn remembered. " He said it contained a lot of drawings and papers pertaining to the new build ing. He's only going to Atlanta to make the first advance payment to the contractors for work and material."
Abner's glance did not waver as it still rested on the old lady's face, but his eyelids contracted slightly, as if he were peering at an impalpable something before him.
"The fust payment!" he repeated. "Then he's takin' some money with 'im?"
"I don't know--yes, I heard him telling Mr. Vaughn, just after dinner, to-day, that he'd prefer to have some check cashed here at Darley, as that would not necessitate his being identified in Atlanta. Mr. Vaughn wanted him to take a check, but Mr. Bowman refused; they went down to the bank to gether, after dinner, and I suppose they arranged it."
" I reckon it must 'a' been a purty big amount?" 235

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Abner was standing near the lamp on the table, and he idly toyed with the base of it.
"I think it was ten thousand dollars." "Ten thousand! Was that all?" Abner re peated the words indifferently. "I thought it was considerable,'' the old lady remarked. " I know Mr. Vaughn was arguing that it was too much for any one to take even such a short distance, but Mr. Bowman finally gained his point, if that's what they went to the bank for." "I reckon that's what they went about," Abner replied, still carelessly.
Suddenly he stooped and picked up a very small envelope with printed words on both sides of it.
"Do you know what that is?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with subtle interest.
"Why, no; -what is it?" Mrs. Vaughn asked, won dering at his earnestness of tone and manner, and looking at the object in question.
"That's a envelope, Mrs. Vaughn, that they put a ticket of a certain sort in at the ticket-office of the L. & N.," Daniel informed her, with studied delib eration. "When you are goin' down to Atlanta, or any nigh p'int, for instance, they jest hand you out a little piece o' stiff card about two inches long. I know, beca'se I've travelled a good deal, an' I'm jest back from a considerable ja'nt over the coun try. When you buy a long-distance cupon-ticket they stamp it about ten times in different places, an' fold it up an' stick it in an envelope like this un. Bowman" -- Abner was eying Mrs. Vaughn sig nificantly--"he tuck his ticket out an' throwed this away."
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"What are you talking about, Mr. Daniel?" Mrs. Vaughn asked, with a puzzled, smile. "Is this one of your jokes?"
"Yes, an' I'm goin' to play it on Bowman," said Abner, with a misleading smile. "Now don't you come out on the porch right now, Mrs. Vaughn. I "want to talk to 'im an' Henry together."
"Well, you are a case," the lady said, and she went into Daniel's room, while he .descended to the men on the veranda.
"So you've been to New York," Vaughn greeted him, with an attempt at levity; " an' I reckon when you seed that throng on Broadway you thought it was court week in town, like that other Georgia greenhorn you've heard about."
"Yes, it certainly looked like that, or a cir cus day," Abner returned, with his usual imperviousness to any joke at his expense.
"Mr. Daniel won't show greenness anywhere," Bowman said, with a touch of sarcasm; "he seems to be at home wherever he hangs up his hat."
"Anywhar except jail," Abner replied. "I draw the line thar."
At this juncture Vaughn "went down the steps and turned round the house in the direction of his barn. Bowman, still leaning against the railing of the banisters, drew out a couple of cigars. He lighted one and carelessly offered the other to Ab ner.
"Have a cigar?" he said. "They are the best this poky old town can supply."
Abner, standing directly in front of him, his hands in his pockets, shook his head.
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"Can't afford it," was his short reply. " I was asking you to have one with me" said Bowman, slightly mystified. "An' I said I couldn't afford it. Can't afford to eat, drink, smoke, chaw, nor joke with folks I hain't on friendly terms with." "I see." Bowman puffed. "Well, I'm no more anxious to be friendly with you than you are with me, Daniel. In fact, to be frank, I have disliked you cordially ever since that conversation we had here after dinner that day. For an uneducated person, you have more self-assertion than any one I ever met. How can a college man reason with a farmer, a man who only knows how to plant seed in the ground and watch for them to sprout? Candidly, if I had not met you here at Vaughn's, and seen that you were an old friend of the family, and that sort of thing, do you think I'd have stood up and argued with you, and let you say what you did to me that day -- you, a mountain clodhopper, who can't speak a dozen words correctly?" "Oh, us mountain men hain't the lowest order!" Abner said, with a soft laugh. " Besides, I've got other business besides farmin'." "A sort of side line," sneered Bowman. "May I ask what it is?" "I'm a detective," said Abner. He took a piece of tobacco from his pocket and broke off a chew and put it into his mouth. "Well!" There was no affectation about Bow man's laugh, he was really amused. " I've heard you say many absurd things, but that certainly is ahead of them all."
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" 'Tain't half as funny as it will sound in about two minutes," said Abner. "Some o' my jokes has to soak awhile. Purty soon you'll split yore sides a-laughin' at that un."
"One of Pinkerton's men, I presume," smiled the Tennesseean. He really thought Abner was indi rectly boasting of some work he had done in giving Revenue officials information regarding illicit distil ling of whiskey in the mountains.
"No, Pink an' me couldn't work together," Ab ner answered, slowly chewing. He leaned to one side of Bowman and spat over the veranda railing. " In fact, I jest take a private job now an' then, when I want to help out a friend, or a sufferin' community."
"Oh, that's it!" Bowman's tone indicated a cer tain amount of preoccupation if not weariness.
"Yes, I got a job on now--mought be called a big case of its sort. It certainly involves about the biggest rascal unhung--a feller that worked every pore, ignorant nigger in the State o' South Carolina, with a gigantic swindle in the way of a burial-outfit insurance company. Initiation fee ten dollars in advance, nigger buried O. K. ef he died on the spot. The skunk raked in some'n' like five thousand before the scheme bu'sted an' he skipped."
Bowman's cigar had started towards his mouth, but it paused, a red spot on a level with his chin. Abner saw it quiver. He could not see the smoker's face in the dim starlight, but he felt a pair of bewil dered eyes fixed steadily on his as he went on:
"The feller seemed to be, with all his education, a sort o' one - idead man. He worked the nigger racket, in some form or other, wharever he went.
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His next business was to sell a lot o' colored fluid to the niggers through Texas, purportin' to take the kink out o' the original African wool. He touched a wholesale druggist in Dallas fer three thousand; made the fool believe he had a list o' fifty thousand bona-fide black subscribers all over the South at a dollar a head. The druggist tried it on his cook, after he'd put his money in it, an' ever' mornin' at breakfast he'd ax 'er how she come on. One day she told 'im she had a sort of eruption o' the scalp, an' was afeard what wool she had was a-drappin' into the family gravy. But the inventor of the concoction had skipped."
Bowman's hand, which held the cigar, sank to his side, and hung there limply. He seemed in capable of response.
"Then he's a regular Don Jew-ann," Abner laughed, as he went on. " He married 'im a wife by the name o' Summers, in Tennessee, in '81, an' a farmer's daughter in Texas, in '83, an' left 'em both high an' dry--one with a baby. But he's a good man all right; he was tryin' in South Carolina to bury all the dead niggers, an' here in Georgia he's tryin' to lift the live ones to a high plane."
"I don't know what you--you mean!" Bowman managed to ejaculate, using the words thousands of men who are suddenly confronted with guilt ut ter in sheer desperation.
"I hain't got yore sort o' education," said Ab ner, with sudden sternness, "but I hain't a fool; you've got ten thousand dollars o' Henry Vaughn's money in yore pocket right now, an' a long ticket away from this town."
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"I haven't a cent," Bowman gasped.
"Well, I know you have; but thar's a good wit ness." Old Vaughn had suddenly emerged into view from behind the house, and Abner suddenly called out to him:
"Say, Henry, come here a minute, an' listen to me!"
"What do you want?" Vaughn asked, impatient ly, as he turned towards the steps.
"I want to know how much money you've ad vanced to this here slick - tongued thief," Abner hurled at him, suddenly.
Vaughn stared in blank astonishment for a mo ment, then he slowly dragged his feet up the steps and approached them.
"What the thunder do you mean? Do you dare to--"
" I jest axed you how much money you've turned over to this bunco shyster," Abner repeated, calm ly. "What's got in you, Henry? Can't you'talk? That's a simple enough question."
Vaughn stood like a man of stone; they heard him drawing quick, alarmed breaths. He fastened his gaze on Bowman's shrinking face.
"Are you goin' to stand thar, Bowman, an' let a man accuse you--you--" but he could not finish.
"He'll let me call 'im anything I want to," said Abner. " I'm here to save you the loss o' ten thou sand clean dollars, Henry Vaughn. I heard you say once that you never heard me make a state ment that I couldn't prove. Well, believe it or not, but that man's wanted fer fraud an' bigamy in two separate States, an' had no more idea o' build-
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in' a nigger college here 'n I have. All he wanted was to work you fer what ready cash he could mus ter, an' he was doin' it to a queen's taste."
"Is he tellin' the truth?" Vaughn demanded, in rising fury.
A desperate denial was struggling to Bowman's lips, when Abner held up his hand and stopped him. Shaking his forefinger steadily in Bowman's eyes, he said, firmly: "Don't you dare dispute my word. I'm the only man on earth that kin keep you out o* jail, an' I may decide to give you a chance, in lieu o' the disgrace an' ridicule exposure would fetch down on this family, but, by God! ef you dispute my word, I'll put you in limbo as shore as you stand thar."
Bowman shrank as if he had been struck in the face, and was silent. Vaughn stood convinced. He shook as with palsy; a groan escaped him. He was completely undone.
"Now, plank out that money!" Abner demanded of the accused. "Plank it up, or"---he was delib erately lying, with his right hand on his hip--" I've got a six-shooter in my hind pocket, an' I'll march you straight down to the marshal, an' ef you start to run I'll turn over a piece o' meat to the coroner, as full o' holes as a sifter."
Bowman hesitated. "I--I--" he was stammer ing when Vaughn ran to him and clutched him by the lapels of his coat. " Gi' me my money!" he panted, shaking him with the fury of a maddened beast. " Gi' me my money, I say!"
"All right, you shall have it," Bowman gave in, tsou-- dde"nly. "That is, Mr. Daniel, you promised not
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"Yes, you go free, dang you!" said Daniel. "I hain't a sworn officer o' the law, an' this family would be the laughin'-stock o' the whole South ef this was to git out. A big reward's on yore head, but I don't want it. I'll send yore things to the train to-night. I intend to sleep here, an' I'll be danged ef I can with you under the roof!"
Bowman drew a cumbersome package from his breast-pocket, and, with trembling hands, which shone corpselike in the light of the rising moon, he extended it to its owner. " Here's your money, Mr. Vaughn," he said.
Vaughn took it eagerly. " Keep 'im here till I count it," he said to Daniel, as he turned into the house; "maybe he's tuck some out."
" It's all there, Mr. Vaughn," Bowman called after him. "I'll wait till you look it over." His cigar had gone out, and he scratched a match and lit it. In the light of the flame his eyes met the twinkling glance of the gaunt farmer.
"Thar's one thing I'd like to ax you," Abner said, " bein's you are an educated man an' I hain't-- what sort of books would you recommend a feller o' my sort to study at odd times. They say it hain't never too old to 1'arn, an' I'm powerful slow to ketch on. I'd like to be a educated man like you, Bowman."
The man addressed said nothing; the invariable fury of a thwarted criminal, who is assured of safety, was on him. He could have murdered Abner with out the slightest compunction of conscience, and yet he bowed before him as a dog before its master.
A light flashed up in the parlor behind them.
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Through the window they saw Vaughn at a table nervously counting the bills. In a few minutes the light was extinguished. Vaughn stood in the door way. He did not advance farther. " It's all right," he said, deep down in his throat. " It's all thar, Ab-- all thar, Abner, old friend; I went over it twice."
Bowman moved away unsteadily, still smoking. Without a word he stepped down to the walk, slowly moved to the gate, and went out. As he disappeared down the sidewalk, Vaughn came re luctantly and stood by Abner's side.
"Huh!" he grunted; "huh!" He seemed unde cided for a few minutes, then he asked: "Does," he nodded towards the door, "the old lady--does she know about this--about Bowman?"
"She knows enough to guess the balance, when Bowman don't turn up to breakfast," Abner said; " but she's all right; she won't give you away. She's more ashamed 'an you are. She's been coverin' up yore foolishness fer the last forty years."
"Huh!" Vaughn ejaculated; "huh!" and he went into the house and back to his room.

XXVI

!2HE next day, during the warmest part

| of the afternoon, Abner appeared at

) the cross-roads store kept by George

j Leftwich. He carried on his shoulder

_

__ij a fine watermelon. Both George and

Jim Garden were there, seated on the counter, con

versing.

"Oh, hello, Uncle Ab!" the shoemaker cried out.

"Bully fer you! Goin' to treat yore Sunday-school

class?"

"You fellers come on back to the platform,"

Abner said, with a grin, as he moved on towards the

rear of the building. "I don't want to mess the

store up. George, git yore meat-knife, an' wipe it

clean."

They scrambled down from the counter, and, with

merry laughter, followed, reaching Abner on the

platform in the rear of the store just as he had

placed the big melon on an empty dry-goods case

and stood over it with an air of pride. He took

the big meat-knife from Leftwich and wiped it on

a piece of brown paper as he talked.

" I hain't agoin' to make ho speech on this bright

an' auspicuous occasion," he began, with mock pom

posity; "but I mought as well inform you gentle

men that this melon has growed in grace under my

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care an' attention jest as you-uns has. I seed prom ise in the vine that produced it, an' when I noticed this melon had come to life one mornin', I said to myself, I did, that I'd water it reg'lar an' give it every attention, an' ef she did well, I'd cut it fer my boys. She not only done well, but she's fit food fer the sweet tooth of a king. It's the finest breed, any way, that ever growed. The seed was sent me by our Congressman from Washington, an' I want to save what's in this un. Don't swallow any of 'em fer all you do. Spit 'em out careful."
"She certainly looks O. K." Leftwich smacked his lips. " Uncle Ab, I was jest about to famish, anyway. Sech a day as this, thar's a sort o' thirst that nothin' but cold watermelon-juice kin begin to satisfy."
" I'm glad I didn't go to the spring as I come by," Garden put in. "To get the full benefit out of a watermelon like this un, you want to take it on a dry, empty stomach, so it kin go right to the spot."
" I don't know as you-uns ever seed a melon as fine as this, an' I'm not jokin'," Abner went on, as he held the tip of the knife-blade against one end of the melon. " Its rind's as thin as paper, an' it's liter'ly bu'stin' with goody. Ef I was jest to punct ure it the least bit, it ud bu'st open like a blowedup hog-bladder. Now, watch 1"
He thrust the knife-blade into the rind, and there was a soft, crackling sound. "Hear that?" Abner ejaculated. "That's a sign she's good ripe." He turned the melon over, and called their attention to the whiter side, which had lain next the ground. "You see that's jest tinted with yaller. That's
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another sign o' ripeness. Don't you-uns ever in vest in a melon that's greenish white on the under side. Ef you do you'll be sold. A melon hain't never ripe till it begins to try to throw its goody off into the ground under it. Ef you don't do yore duty by it then it '11 rot."
An exclamation of pleased surprise rose from " the class" as Abner thrust his knife deeper and the melon lay in great, red, frosty-looking halves before them.
"What did I tell you?" Abner exclaimed. " Hain't she a daisy?"
Just then George Leftwich heard a sound in the front part of the store. He stepped to the door and looked in. Three women were entering at the front.
" By gum! I got to leave you fellers," he said, re gretfully. " It's Miss Willie Ketchem, and Miss Josie Wynn, an' the'r aunt Mrs. Lorrin'. Go ahead without me; but fer the love o' mercy save me a chunk of it!"
George darted away, and Abner paused, a frown of disappointment on his face.
"We kin wait fer J im," said Jim Garden, who, under the grime of his trade, had in him, after all, the material from which gentlemen are made. " The longer a body waits fer a good thing the better it seems when it comes."
"An' the wuss when it's gone," said Abner, his mind on something else. "Of course we kin wait," he said; "but that hain't what's a-botherin' me, Jim."
"You say it hain't, Uncle Ab?" It was as if 247

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Garden could imagine nothing worse than delay at that hot and sultry moment.
"No," said Abner. "I'd set my heart on youuns -- jest you 'n' George -- gittin' plumb full on this melon--so full you couldn't hear the water slosh in you when you walked; but, Jim, I don't know how you are on sech matters; but my old daddy 1'arnt me never to eat a thing, not even ef I was starvin', without offerin' some of it to ever'body in sight. Jim, ef I was to go ahead an' eat this melon back here with you-uns, an' not offer some to them thar ladies, my old daddy ud rise up in his grave an' yell ' Hog!' as loud as he could hol ler."
'' Huh! is that so, Uncle Ab ? Well, my daddy died 'fore I was old enough to walk."
"Yes, I'm tellin' you the truth, Jim, an' thar hain't but one road open to me, an' that is, small as the'r insides may be compared to big hungry men like us, I've got to take this biggest half an' offer it to 'em."
" I wouldn't use that word offer so many times ef I was you, Uncle Ab," Jim said, disconsolately. "Jest say give the next time, an' be done with it. I never knowed a old maid that wouldn't eat what was handed to 'er by a man in my life. She'd eat a peck o' green apples ef she was takin' medicine fer--fer--any old complaint."
"Well, thar's nothin' else to do," said Abner, and he took up the larger portion of the melon and went into the store. Jim followed, and stood at the end of the counter marvelling over the old bachelor's gallantry and grace as he presented the melon to
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Leftwich's customers, and politely cut it into three parts, engaging in considerable light talk in the mean time.
" Slick old duck," Jim mused, as he leaned on the counter.
Abner remained possibly a quarter of an hour, evidently enjoying the pleasure shown by the ladies over the melon, as they daintily ate it with the new spoons Leftwich had borrowed for that purpose from his stock of household wares.
Abner had just come back to Garden, and re marked that Leftwich would soon finish waiting on the ladies and rejoin them, when Jim happened to look out at the open door on to the platform where they had left their part of the melon.
"Great God!" he exclaimed, aghast. "What do you think o' that?"
Abner looked, stared with widening eyes, and then softly swore his fiercest oath. " Dang it! dang it!" he ejaculated.
A long, lank negro, Hank Dobbs, who worked on a farm just across the road, stood at the drygoods box, coolly gouging out the luscious red meat of the melon with dripping fingers, and shoving it into his big mouth.
" Good God, it's all gone!" Jim exclaimed. " Look! The black thief's drinking the juice like milk from a bowl." For a moment both men stood gazing into each other's eyes; then Jim made a sudden, determined movement. Going into the little room cut off in the left-hand corner of the building in the rear, where George slept> he came out with a double-barrelled shot-gun. Putting the muzzle ^to
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his lips he blew the air through it and out at the tubes.
"What are you goin' to do?" Abner inquired, his face still firmly set with disappointment.
For answer Jim went to a big box full of small red pease, and took up a handful of them and held them out for Abner's inspection.
"I'm agoin' to load this gun with some o' these things," he said, "an' fix that coon so he cayn't set down fer a month. He's standin' jest right an' his pants hain't thick. I want to appeal to his seat o' reason."
" I wouldn't do that, Jim," Abner put out his hand and took the gun. " I knowed a bad case o' blood-p'isonin' to set in after a prank o' that sort once. A uncle o' mine come in a inch o' losin' a slave wuth two thousand dollars. It's true Hank's free, but he's got a family to support. Gee whiz, he's done us! My Lord, he's done us to a turn! Be twixt him an' them thar ladies--"
Leftwich had finished waiting on his customers, and, leaving them to the enjoyment of their treat in chairs near the door, he rejoined his friends. He swore loudly when he saw what the negro had done.
" Here he comes now, lickin' his chops, dang his black hide!" Garden cried, and then an idea struck him. "By gum," he said, "let's make 'im think it's p'isoned! I want to git even; my Lord, / want to git even /"
"Done!" said Leftwich, angrily; "but you'll have to work it fine, Jim, that nagger hain't nobody's fool."
" Leave that to me," said Jim, his eyes twinkling; "you fellers jine in "when I let down the bars."
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The old negro slouched in. He had an empty tow-sack on his shoulder, and carried a woodman's axe with the handle downward, as if it were a walk ing-stick.
"Hello, Hank!" Jim addressed him, with careless cordiality; "been choppin' wood to-day?"
"Over t' Marse Pete Simpson's," the darky an swered, coolly sliding the sleeve of his shirt across his damp lips and running his tongue out of the cor ner of his mouth in the direction of his dripping chin.
"Yes," Jim said, turning to his friends, as if to resume some interrupted topic, while Abner and Leftwich stood staring at him, expectantly. "Yes, gentlemen, after I'd tried ever' thing I could think of to kill that old sow, I determined I'd do it, an* be done with it. So I went to the drug-store in Darley an' told Doc Campbell I wanted some rank p'ison that ud lay 'er out stiff an' stark, an' he said, said he, 'Take an ounce o' this arsenic, an' ef that don't make the life blood co'geal in 'er veins I'll give you my stock o' goods.' ' All right,' said I, ' you fix up the stuff an' I'll give it to 'er. But,' said I, 'what's the best way to give it?' 'The best way,' said he--' the best way I ever seed--is to take a ripe watermelon, cut it open, an' sprinkle the p'ison all over the top. It will soak all through in a minute, an' the sow won't taste it.' "
"I wondered what you was a-doin' with that fine melon back thar." George Leftwich had caught on to the shoemaker's drift, and now joined in quite tact fully. The three white men were not even looking at the black target of these remarks; they even ig nored a low startled grunt from old Hank as he
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suddenly sat down on the head of a potato-barrel and rested his axe on the floor.
"Yes, I give the best half to them ladies up in front, an' put the p'ison on t'other half," Jim con tinued, easily, "an' as I go along by that sow's bed, on my way to pa's, I'll invite 'er to the last meal she'll ever stick her snout in."
Abner had lowered his head and was smiling be hind his long hand.
" I wonder what it ud do fer a man or a woman, ef they was to take a thing like that unbeknowenst," he observed.
"I axed the druggist about that very p'int," said Jim, gravely. " In fact, he cautioned me, by all means, not to let a drap o' the juice git on my hands. That's why I left it out in the rear so nobody wouldn't tetch it."
There was a sudden groan from the negro, and he leaned forward, his eyes protruding.
"What's the matter, Hank?" Jim asked, sudden ly. "By gum! are you sick, old man?"
There was another groan from Hank, but that was his only response.
" By gosh! he don't look well, does he?" Jim asked, suddenly. " Good Lord, I wonder what's the matter with the feller's eyes! Say, Uncle Ab, did you ever see a body's skin look splotchy an' puffy like that?"
Controlling the muscles of his face with difficulty, Abner came forward and took Hank's hand in his and pressed his thumb down on the pulse.
"Say, Hank," he suddenly asked, "what's the matter with you?"
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There was another groan from the negro, but that was all. Jim went to the door and looked out.
"Great God!" he exclaimed turning back; "gen tlemen, Hank has simply et that watermelon. He's et it, I tell you; he's et it!"
"You don't mean that, shorely!" cried Daniel, moving towards the rear to prevent his smile from being seen by the victim.
"Oh no, Jim, you must be mistaken!" George Leftwich chimed in, and they all went outside. When they returned, a moment later, Hank lay doubled up on a pile of empty sacks on the floor. The three men stood over him. "I wonder ef we could git a doctor here in time?" Leftwich asked, in well-assumed concern.
" No, I seed Dr. Stafford ridin' breakneck speed across the river," said the fertile Garden. "Mrs. Wellman's expectin' an increase, an' a thing like that takes time. No, gentlemen, I'm sorry to say it, but we mought as well stare facts in the face. This county's agoin' to lose one o' the best niggers in it. Old Hank Dobbs is done fer."
Hank groaned again. " Fer de Lawd sake gi' me some'n'," he said. "I 'lowed you-uns hed throwed dat melon away. Oh, do gi' me some'n'!"
" Thar hain't no thin' on earth that '11 kill that dose," said Garden. " In old times they used to fill a man up with lamp-oil; but yo're so full o' water melon juice the oil ud jest float on top an' not sink to the spot. You hain't got many minutes. Hank, old fellow, I hain't much of a prayin' man, but ef thar's anything in the way o' speritual advice or counsel that I kin administer to help you make yore
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final peace, why, I'll do my best. Uncle Abner, couldn't you invoke some sort o'--sort o' blessin'?"
" I don't know what to say." Abner turned his face towards the door, and Leftwich, for fear of laughing aloud, walked quickly to the front. Jim went into George's room, and came back with a Bible in his hand.
"Do you want me to read to you, Hank?" he asked, solemnly.
" Oh, Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy!" came from the negro.
Jim opened the book at random, and with an amused glance at Abner, out of the corner of his eye, he began:
"'Abraham begat Isaac; an' Isaac begat Jacob; an' Jacob begat Judas, an' '--huh!" Garden ended, " all that hain't agoin' to ease nobody's dyin' brow."
"I should think not," said Abner. Hank groaned and pressed his gaunt hands on his stomach while Garden rapidly turned the pages of the Bible with his stained fingers. Jim paused, and with the book close to his near-sighted eyes he began another chance paragraph in his high, stilted voice: "'The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uz--Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of--' Geewhilikins! Uncle Ab, this is too much fer me. This ud lay out a well man, much less a pore expirin' nigger on the bsorimnke'no''?"the next world. Don't you feel like sayin'
'' I feel like cussin' a blue streak,'' Abner blurted 254

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out, "when I think o' that big, strappin', overgrown, flat-footed--"
"Well, don't cuss right here now, Uncle Ab. It may some day be yore luck to be among strangers on yore dyin' bed, without a soul to come forward with a word or a prayer to ease yore damp brow, under the terrible sweat o'--"
Just then Miss Willie Ketchem came forward in real alarm.
"What do you men mean?" she asked. "Don't you know folks have been killed that way? I was reading just the other day where some doctors made a convict die by telling him he was bleeding to death. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Hank, get up from that floor; there wasn't a thing the matter with that melon. George Leftwich told me so just now. They are just playing a prank on you, because you got it before they did. Get up!"
The negro lay still; but he had pricked up his ears; the conviction that he had been the victim of a joke showed itself in his face as he opened his eyes and looked about him sheepishly.
" You are at the bottom of this, Mr. Abner Dan iel," Miss Ketchem went on, playfully shaking her finger at the old farmer. "I'd recognize your work anywhere after that trick you played on us in At lanta, about that flash-light. Josie and I both came within an inch of making fools of ourselves talking about it at Mrs. Petark's quiltin' when we got back."
Abner had risen and stood bowing, a picture of old-time rural gallantry.
" I reckon thar must be some mistake, Miss Wil lie." He smiled as he backed towards the front of
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the store. "That flash-light certainly worked all right fer me that day."
Leftwich and Garden stood in the door and watched him as he walked away, his head down.
"He's mad, I tell you, Jim," Leftwich declared. "It's the fust time I ever seed 'im rail mad in my life."
"No, it hain't that," Garden decided; "he'd set his heart on treatin' me 'n' you, George, an' the old feller's jest disapp'inted -- he's disapp'inted way down inside. He's all right, George; our old Sun day-school teacher's all right."
"Yes, he's all right," said Leftwich. "He'll do to tie to, Jim."
They kept their eyes on Abner till he disappeared down the road.
"You'd 'a' laughed ef you'd a been here t'other day," Leftwich said. " Preacher Hardcastle was in the store showin' off his 1'arnin'. He was tellin' us about this new subject of Evolution. Some folks has said, you know, that it will play smash gener ally with everything in the Bible; but Hardcastle contends that it's right in a line with sacred teachin's. He helt forth about a hour, in his long-winded way, to prove that when the Bible said the world was created in six days, that six long ages, or periods o' time, as he expressed it, was meant. Uncle Abner was listenin', but he wouldn't talk; he set on a nailkeg, a-chawin' an' a-spittin'; but he wouldn't chip in, although Hardcastle was doin' his level best to git 'im started. All at once the preacher got sort o' mad an' begun to nag him about breakin' the Sabbath. He'd seed Uncle Ab, one Sunday mornin',
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out in his tater-patch with a bucket, watering his tater-vines, an' he lit into the old. man purty heavy, sayin' he was violatin' the Lord's day, which was to be kept holy, and so on.
"Right thar Abner looked up sudden an' said: : How are you goin' to prove it's the Lord's day, Brother Hardcastle?'
"'Why,' said Hardcastle, ' it's the seventh day-- the day the Almighty rested after His work.'
" Then the old man laughed, sorter funny-like, an' got up to go.
" ' You jest now said,' said he, ' that the Lord made the world in six long, separate periods o' time. Now, ef you'll tell me which period He rested in, an' ef I'm alive at the time, I'll promise you not to water no tater-vines.'"
Garden laughed. "He's a daisy, George--the old man's a plumb daisy."
"That's what he is," said Leftwich, "an' me 'n' you are about the only fellers in the county that know 'im clean through."

XXVII
reach Abe Wilson's house, Abner ' had to go seventeen miles through the I mountains, and through a section, too, I which was very sparsely settled. He _ _ _ _ started out on horseback one morning, tiree or four days after his return from New York. According to his calculation of distance and time, he was to reach his destination before sundown, but his horse cast a shoe, and the delay at a black smith's shop detained him till night was well upon him. It was about two hours after dark that he came upon a cabin on the road-side. The light of a fire in a crude mud-and-log chimney shone through an open door; a dog began to bark dolefully, and the sharp tones of a woman's voice rang out on the farbearing air, in a stern command for silence. She stood in the low doorway, her attitude that of al most total apathy. "Is this whar Abe Wilson lives?" Abner asked, as he drew rein at the little leaning gate. The woman, who was about thirty years of age, was chewing tobacco, and she spat at the end of the door-step "No, it hain't," she answered. "He don't live here."
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The heavy floor-planks creaked loudly under the tread of a man, who seemed to rise from the chimneycorner, and a shaggy-haired, middle-aged mountain eer peered over the woman's shoulder.
" What's he want?" he asked her. '' Axed ef Abe Wilson lived here; reckon he means Sue's man," replied the "woman, chewing indiffer ently. The man, who was without a coat, his homeknitted suspenders hanging loosely over his hips, stepped down to the ground and sauntered to the gate. "You lookin' fer Abe?" he asked. "Yes, I 'lowed I'd like to see 'im," Abner an swered. " Used to know some o' his folks. I was travellin' this way, an' bein' sorter benighted, I thought maybe he'd give me a bed, an' feed fer my hoss." The mountaineer pried a splinter from the top rail of the fence, an' began to chew it. "I reckon," he drawled, "you fur-off fellers think we-uns up here don't want to make no money ourse'ves. Say, stranger, I don't know who you are, an' I reckon you don't know my name, nur care to know it; but I'm here to tell you ef I could 'a' produced Abe several months ago, I'd 'a' done it." " Somebody's offered a reward fer Abe, then," said Abner. "Didn't know he'd done anything." "Didn't say he had done nothin'," retorted the man at the fence; "they wanted 'im fer a witness in a killin' scrape. A detective was along here about two months ago an' told me 'n' some o* my neighbors that he'd pay us twenty dollars to induce Abe to come to court."
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"And that's one thing that made the fellow skip out, I reckon," Abner said to himself. " I bet they deviled the life out'n 'im." Then aloud: " I hain't got no reward to offer fer Abe; jest want to see 'im fer the sake o' old acquaintance. Do you happen to know whar he lives?"
'' Don't know whar he lives now.'' The man treated himself to a laugh, in which his wife joined. They evidently considered the reply a witty one. "He's gone clean off some's. I reckon you've tuck yore trip fer nothin', stranger, an' you won't be apt to make that reward money. Ef Abe could 'a' been had, some o' us boys up here ud 'a' fetched 'im to town."
" Sue Wilson's man is too big a coward to go anywhar with anybody," the woman said, and she came out to the gate. She was followed by a little boy of about five years of age, a comical-looking creature in trousers, that reached almost to his armpits, and new elastic suspenders, and a red flannel shirt. He slid through the narrow opening of the gate, and, looking up at Abner, he made some remark the old man did not understand.
"What did he say?" Daniel asked the woman. "He axed you fer a chaw o' tobacco," the child's father said, with evident pride. " I hain't been to ethveensitno'r.e'' to-day, an' he's been beggin' fer some all
"You don't let that child chaw, shorely," said Abner.
" Huh, he's been at it since he was three years old," the father smiled.
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" Well, I'll tell you," said the mountaineer. " That child had a weak stomach fer a long time; nothin' wouldn't lay on it; nothin' we give 'im would do a bit o' good till one day I begun to give 'im tobacco, an' he mended right off, an' is the heartiest brat in these mountains to-day. I think he must 'a' swal lowed some o' the juice along in his chawin', an' it was jest the sort o' medicine he needed. I don't know; what's good fer one hain't fer another."
"Well, I hain't agoin' to giv chawin'-tobacco to as young a child as that, even if it is his daily food," Abner said. "So you think Abe's not at home?"
" I know well enough he hain't," said the woman. "Thar's been talk o' Sue applyin' fer a divorce, as soon as she kin git 'er crop in. She'd be a sight bet ter off; she done all 'er field-work this spring herse'f. Lord! you wouldn't ketch me feedin' an' clothin' a stout, able-bodied man jest beca'se he said spoony things to me in my pammy days."
"Huh, I reckon not," said Daniel. "But I'll ride on an' see his wife anyway. How much furder is it?"
"About two mile," said the man, and Abner rode on.
About half an hour later another road-side house loomed up against the white sky. It was somewhat larger than its neighbor, having at least four rooms, and a lean-to shed and a little porch. The door next to the road was closed, but through the cracks between the logs, where the original mud had crum bled away, the light shone. A dog came growling round the corner, but Abner silenced him with a calm, friendly word, and the animal came to the
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gate wagging his tail. The door on the porch was opened, it seemed to Abner most cautiously, and a woman considerably past middle age put out her head inquiringly.
" Good-evening, madam," Daniel greeted her cord ially, as he slid from his horse, and, stiff and sore from his long ride, went to the gate. "This is Mrs. Wilson, hain't it?"
"That's my name," said the woman, who was meanly clad in home-spun clothing, barefooted, and hyaodre'snc?a"nt, ill-kept reddish hair. "What mought be
"Daniel," responded Abner, and he said to him self, as he noted her unruffled demeanor, "She's goin' to be a hard un to handle; I kin see that at the outset."
Throwing the rein of his bridle over the fence-post, he drew near the porch. "I'm tired as thunder," he said; "would you let man and beast put up here to-night?"
"I couldn't think of it," promptly replied the woman, as if she were ready for the request. "I'd never hear the last of it, livin' plumb by myself like I do in this lonely place. Abe, my husband, has been off a long time. Some thinks I resk a lots stayin' on here like I do."
Abner went up on the porch and stood close to her, looking in wistfully at the cheerful fire. " Would you mind ef I set down fer a little while?" he asked.
He saw her hesitate, and then she decided in his favor. It looked as if she felt that a compliance with this desire would conform better to her apparent frankness up to that point than would a refusal of
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a request so thoroughly reasonable. He did not

wait for her answer, but taking her consent for grant

ed, he walked into the room. He noted that two

chairs stood at equal distances from the fire. They

had the appearance of having been just vacated.

Abner sank into the first, and before doing so, and

while the woman was closing the door, he deftly

thrust his hand beneath him. The seat of the chair

was warm. As the woman was approaching, Ab

ner suddenly got up, bowed, and took the other chair.

Again he slid his hand beneath him. He had his re

ward. This chair, too, was warm. " Huh," Ab

ner said to himself. "Somebody was settin' here

with this woman when I come up the road. Ef it

wasn't Abe, he'd better be lookin' to his interests."

He pushed his feet out towards the fire. " I don't

know when I've ever been so completely fagged out,

Mrs. Wilson," he said. "All along the road I kept

tellin' myself that I'd strike some house before long

whar I could put up; an' when I seed the light here,

I thought my time had come; but you say you can't

take me in. Lord, this fire feels good!" He was

laving his hands in the balmy heat.

Just then there was a sound in an adjoining room,

as of a pan being knocked from a shelf or table to the

floor. Abner saw the woman start; but she regained

her self-possession in an instant.

"Tige! Tige!" she called out; "git out o' that

kitchen! Do you hear me? Git out!" She rose

and shambled across the room, making dire threats

as she went. Abner stood up. " Purty good! purty

good!" he chuckled. "She's as sharp as a briar,

but she can't fool me. I heard that dog thumpin'

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his tail on the porch jest before that racket." The mantel-piece, a crude affair, was on a level with his chin. Abner was looking to see if there were any fire - arms within reach. He saw something else which interested him. It was a half-burned briarroot pipe, such as many mountaineers use. In its bowl glowed a tiny red spark. Indeed, it was short of life, for it expired under Abner's swift glance. He heard the woman knocking things about in the adjoining room and still uttering threats. Hear ing her returning step, Abner sat down; he held his hands out to the fire.
" I reckon you don't smoke," he said to her, care lessly, as she resumed her seat. He was taking out his pipe, and she fell into his trap.
"No, I don't," she said, "an' I don't dip snuff nor chaw."
"Thought I smelt burnin' tobacco," he said. He dipped up a small coal of fire in his pipe and began to puff. He had caught her startled eyes, but she was ready for him in an instant.
"I smell it too," she said. "Abe left a little chunk of a plug in the kitchen, an' I got tired o' seem' it around. I throwed it in the fire jest 'fore you come. The sight of it made me feel bad, to think o' him so fur off, an' me here all by myse'f."
She raised her apron to her eyes, and leaned for ward, quite still and expectant.
" Purty good, by gum!" Abner thought, admir ingly. "An' jest to think of a no-'count skunk like Wilson havin' sech a helpmeet as that. She ort to married a big politician. I'll have a job gittin'
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round 'er. She's afeard o' me. I'll have to ease 'er over that."
"I mought 'a' knowed you didn't use tobacco in no form ^vhatever," he said. "A woman couldn't have sech a good complexion as you got, Mrs. Wil son--to say nothin' of yore keen eye--an' use sech a stimulant. I don't know how old you are, but when I fust seed you, I 'lowed you was Abe's daughter. I reckon it's this mountain air that keeps you so young-lookin' an' spry."
The woman flushed. Up to this moment she had not thought of her bare feet; but now she drew them under her tattered skirt and smoothed the front of the garment down over her ankles.
" My mammy never would let me use it," she said, agreeably.
"Bet you don't drink much coffee, nuther," said Abner, who felt that he was making headway.
"Don't git much of it to drink, even ef I wanted it," said the woman, who had thawed remarkably and looked as if she thought such an observant in dividual as Daniel deserved better treatment than she had so far bestowed on him, considering that he was really tired and sore from travel.
" May I ax who you was 'fore you married?" Abner asked, his pipe poised in the air, his elb&w on his knee.
"I was a Thurman," said the woman. "Pete. Thurman's youngest gal."
"Good Lord! not Jeff Thurman's sister?" Abner exclaimed, grasping another sort of resource with subtle eagerness.
" He's my oldest brother," said the woman, pleas antly. " Do you know him?"
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"Know 'im? Why, Jeff's one o' my best friends, Mrs. Wilson. Lord, ef he'd 'a' knowed I was comin' up here he'd 'a' sent you some word."
"He used to have a blacksmith-shop at the road forks," the woman went on, agreeably; "but when they put in them water-works, I think they call 'em, at Darley, somebody told 'im over thar that they needed a plumb--a plumber. What's a plumber, anyway ?"
"It's a feller that puts in pipes an' one thing or 'nother," Daniel informed her. " You needn't think Jeff won't do well over thar, Mrs. Wilson; what he's at beats mountain horse-shoein' all holler; he works now with a cigar in his mouth. I had to laugh t'other day." It now looked as if Abner intended to get further into her good graces by being enter taining. "He hain't been thar long enough to git on to the dead-beats in the town, an' Tim Murphy, a feller that never was knowed to pay a debt, got Jeff to lay a pipe from the main in the street into his front yard to sprinkle with. Jeff 'lowed the feller was all right, so he bought the pipe at the hardware store an' did the work, an' then went in fer the pay. Tim told 'im he'd hand it to 'im the next time he met 'im. Law me!" Abner laughed; " ef Tim handed out all he owed he'd have to have as many paws as a centipede, an' keep 'em a-wigglin'. Jeff told a friend what he'd done, an' his friend told 'im he'd never git a smell o' the money, an' opened his eyes generally as to Murphy's reputation. Most folks who'd been beat by Murphy had shet up an' said no more about it; but it got Jeff's mountain blood up. He went back an' set on Murphy's steps, an' told
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the family he was goin' to abide with 'em till some hard coin had come his way."
Mrs. Wilson laughed impulsively. If her husband was out in the cold somewhere, she had evidently forgotten it. "That's Jeff over an' over," she said. "Once whert--but you go on."
"They let Jeff set," Abner continued. "Didn't seem to bother them much, ef he wanted to make a foot-mat o' hisse'f, so he got tired havin' the childern step over his legs ever' time they passed in or out, an' went off. Howsomever, he had things come his way at last. He was drivin' past Tim's t'other day, on his wagon, an' seed Tim settin' on the porch a-smokin' a fine cigar, an' he stopped right whar he was to cuss--an' study. All at once he got down an' tuck a pick off'n his wagon an' started in at Tim's gate. Tim axed 'im what he was goin' to do, an' Jeff 'lowed he was goin' to dig up his pipe, long's he hadn't been paid fer it. But Tim, like most o' his sort, knows ever' hook an' crook in the law, an' he said, said he, ' Ef you come inside my yard an' tetch a thing I'll handle you fer trespass.'
"That was a blow to Jeff, beca'se it sounded like some'n' he'd heard in the court-house; so he slunk back outside an' cussed some. He was goin' back to his wagon before a considerable crowd that had gathered to hear the dispute, when all at once a idea seemed to strike 'im. He tuck his pick an' dug down in the road whar his pipe j'ined the main, till he got to it, an' then he monkey-wrenched it off an' fastened a chain round the pipe runnin' into Tim's lot an' hitched his mules to it. By that time Tim had quit smokin'. He come out an' begun
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to look on. 'Say/ said he, 'what are you goin* to do?'
"'I'm goin' to have my pipe,' said Jeff, swingin' his whip an' cluckin', 'an' I hain't agoin' to trespass nuther; I'm agoin' to stand here in the public high way an' drag it out from under yore dang fence. I'm agoin' to have jestice!' Well, sir, it produced the biggest laugh you ever heard, an' Tim got as red as a pickled beet. ' How much is yore dern bill ?' he axed. Jeff told 'im, an' Tim planked up the spondulics while the crowd yelled. Then Tim axed Jeff to screw the pipe back on the main, an' Jeff told 'im he didn't do his work twice, an' driv' off, leavin' Tim without a speck o' water on his place."

XXVIII
HILE Abner had been speaking, the woman seemed to have grown slightly suspicious, and was more on her guard.
" Did you say yore name was Dan_ __ iel?" she asked. " Yes'm, that's what I said," Abner told her. " Not Abner Daniel?" "The same, Mrs. Wilson." "You don't say!" The woman spoke in a tone of open relief. " Seems to me I've heard o' you ever since I kin remember--some prank o' yore'n, or some funny sayin' or tale. I never heard nothin' agin you in my life, Mr. Daniel, an' I was jest a-wonderin'." "Jest a-wonderin' ef I was like all the balance o' the men that's come this away, botherin' the life out o' you about Abe an' that thar Warren case." Ab ner leaned forward and knocked his pipe against one of the stones that served for andirons. " No, I hain't out after no reward, Mrs. Wilson; but I hain't here to lie. I'm sorry fer Warren--so sorry--well! I can't tell you how sorry I am, fer I'm one o' the crowd that believes he done that deed in selfdefence." "You say you do, Mr. Daniel?" The woman passed her toil - worn hand over her set lips and stared into the ashes.
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"Yes, as firmly as I believe I'm a-settin" here; an' the pore old drunkard's agoin' to die fer it; he hain't agoin' to git jestice. That's a hard thing in this world, Mrs. Wilson, to be behind prison-bars, an' hear the scoffs an' threats from yore fellow-man out side, an' know that you are agoin' to a shameful end, powerless to raise yore hand to prove the truth --the simple truth."
The woman looked very grave; she took a deep breath; her hand, resting on her knee, quivered; her eyelashes were unsteady.
"Yes, it's a pity," she said. "An' thar hain't but one living soul that could save 'im, an' that man could do it with a single word --that man's yore husband. Abe could do it, Mrs. Wilson. It hain't none o' my business, but I went in to see Warren t'other day, and when he stood up at them bars, pale an' peaked an' out o' breath, an' begged me to try to find Abe Wilson--well! I jest took it on myself to ride up here an' lay the matter 'fore you. Women's a sight better'n men, 'case women is guided by the heart, an' the Lord made that; men go by the head, an' the devil holds high carnival thar half the time. I hain't no fool, Mrs. Wilson. I know why Abe won't appear at court." "You--you say--I don't know what you mean, Mr. Daniel," the woman stammered. " That Joe Clegg gang o' moonshiners has got Abe scared at nothin', Mrs. Wilson. Me 'n' Abe's the only men in the country that knows the'r secret, an' " they've made 'im believe that he'll be sent to jail ef he goes to court. It's a lie. Abe hain't in a bit o' danger. I know it all from A to izzard, Mrs. Wilson.
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Thar was a gang o' counterfeiters in these moun tains ; they was ketched up with, an' sent off fer ten years apiece. I reckon Abe did fetch an' take the'r mail fer 'em, an' maybe, a few times, brought out material to 'em from the railroad; but he couldn't be handled fer that, Mrs. Wilson. I tell you it's jest that triflin' Joe Clegg gang that's filled 'im up with tales."
The woman was staring eagerly, her mouth open, her eyes flashing. " I've always believed that very thing!" she cried, impulsively. "I've always be lieved that them fellers was at the root of it."
" Then you ort to be considered, too," Abner went on, seductively.
"Me!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilson. "Why--" "Yes, you," Abner put in, quickly. "A woman at yore time o' life has a right to quiet an' peace o' mind. Ef this was settled an' done with, Abe could stay at home like other men; but ef he don't settle it he'll be a lost soul, Mrs. Wilson. He knows he is consignin' Warren to death on the scaffold, an' ef he allows it he'll never sleep sound again--never while thar's breath in his body." The woman groaned softly and twisted her hands under her apron. "What am I to do, Mr. Daniel?" she asked, in a helpless, troubled voice. " Do? Huh, it's simple enough," answered Abner, and his eyes flashed as his diplomacy reached the climax to which it had climbed. " Do ? Why, go to that back door thar an" call 'im in here. I'll satisfy 'im in a minute that he's scared at nothin'." The woman stared blankly, her lower jaw falling. "You think Abe's--you think--"
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" I don't think nothin' about it," said Abner, with a soft laugh, meant to convey reassurance, "I know he hain't a hundred yards from this house."
The woman's lips moved dumbly, but meeting Abner's confident stare her eyes went down. There was dead silence for a moment, then Mrs. Wilson spoke.
"I'm jest a lone, helpless woman," she said, plead ingly. "I never have heard one unkind thing you ever done, Mr. Daniel, an' in spite o' all the folks that have been botherin' me about Abe, I believe you wouldn't come here to harm me. I believe yo're a friend. I never, sence the fust o' all this, have felt so much like I'd struck a rail one as I do to-night. Mr. Daniel"--her voice suddenly broke, her eyes filled--" I've had more'n I kin bear."
'' I reckon you have''--Abner was deeply touched-- " an', Mrs. Wilson, I'll tell you what I'll do. Ef you've got any faith in me, I'll give you my word to stand behind Abe with ever' dollar I got on earth, an' see that he hain't harmed by testifyin' fer Warren."
" Will you do that, Mr. Daniel ?" "Not only will I do it, Mrs. Wilson," Abner re sponded ; "but I'm in a position to pledge the money and support o' the person who has been payin' all o' Warren's legal expenses. I say this beca'se I know Abe won't have a hair o' his head harmed, Mrs. Wilson; he could come back here after the trial a free man." " Somehow I believe every word you are a-sayin'," the woman declared, in a sudden sob of relief. " Mr. Daniel, I'm goin' to call Abe--I'm goin' to call 'im!" "All right, Mrs. Wilson, that '11 be the best thing to do. I'll satisfy 'im as soon as I talk to 'im."
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J2HK woman went from the room, through i) the one adjoining, and out into the moonlight.
'' Whoopee--whoope - ah! Whoopee _ j( --whoope-ah!" she called, in mellow,
far-reaching tones. With a light, guarded tread, Abner crept into the
adjoining room and stood behind the door-shutter. He could see Mrs. Wilson about twenty paces from him under the boughs of an apple-tree. She placed her hands to her lips and called again. Once more she paused to listen, and then Abner heard her ex claim, in disgust: "Fool! scared to death, an' his plain duty, too!" She came back to the door. "Are you thar, Mr. Daniel?" she questioned.
"What's wanted?" he softly asked, remaining be hind the shutter.
" Abe hain't seed yore hoss leave," she said. " He knows you are still in the house; he hain't willin' to resk my judgment."
" I'll tell you what to do," Abner suggested, in a low, reassuring voice. "You go clean out to the fence, an' when he sees you he'll jine you; then maybe you kin reason with 'im."
"I ort to 'a' thought o' that," Mrs. Wilson said, and she promptly moved away to the barn and cow-
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lot, a hundred yards distant. Again she called out, but more softly this time, using her husband's name. Abner could see her gaunt figure clearly in the moon light. Presently he saw the bent figure of a man below medium height emerge from the woods, that bordered an old field near by, and cautiously ap proach her. Abe Wilson and his wife stood close to gether and talked. The minutes passed. No prog ress was being made, Abner thought, in the right direction.
"This hain't goin' to do," he said to himself, and tiptoeing back through the house, he went out at the front. He climbed over the fence, and, bending close to the ground behind it, he made his way cau tiously round the house to the barn, and finally reached a point within thirty feet of Wilson and his wife.
"Don't be a plumb gump!" he heard her saying, sharply. " I tell you I won't live with a man that's as rank a coward as you are."
"Abner Daniel hain't no fool, I tell you," Wilson retorted. "He didn't ride all the way up here fer his health; he wants to make money out of it, an' give me trouble. He's jest pulled the wool clean over yore eyes with his smooth talk."
Abner laughed aloud, suddenly, and stepped into view.
"Abe," he smiled, "you are about the biggest booby, to 'a' been through a rale war, I ever laid eyes on. Yore wife's right. I've come here to befriend you."
Wilson had started away, but he stopped. "I don't know whether yo're a friend or not," he
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said, sullenly, but he stood still, seeing that Abner was unarmed, and Daniel went straight to him and slapped him on the shoulder.
"Abe Wilson," said he, "you hain't agoin' to hide here in these mountains an' see a neighbor die in need o' yore just testimony."
" He thinks he kin be handled fer dodgin' the sum mons," said the woman, tentatively.
"Ah, that's all poppycock," Abner said, lightly. " Now, let's go in the house an' talk this over by the fire. You've got guns an' revolvers an' a house-dog, an' I hain't even a decent pocket-knife. I've got all the resk to run; you could cut my throat from ear to ear ef you wanted to. I hain't here to fight. I'm here axin' fer mercy."
They crossed the lot and entered the house. They were literally dragging Wilson by persuasion. Be fore sitting down he asked, abruptly:
"What is it you want me to do, anyway, Dan iel?"
"The simplest thing on earth," Abner replied. "You don't have to go to court now, 'case it hain't in session, but I want a paper sworn to by you, that you seed that affair, an' that Warren shot in self-defence."
"Is that all you want?" cried the woman. " That's all," said Abner. " Ef Abe will ride down to Springtown with me in the mornin', an' make oath before Squire Felton, he kin come on home after wards an' not be hindered by a livin' soul. With a paper like that, we could get a new trial, an' ef Abe don't want to appear at court, his affidavit would have its weight before a jury. It would be better
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fer Abe to come out like a man, though, an' I'll bet a hoss he will when the time comes."
"Well, I'll go with you in the mornin'." Wilson sat down at the fire and thrust out his feet.
For an hour they conversed together about all sorts of matters of interest to mountain residents, and then Abner retired to the shed-room in the rear. His bed was comfortable, and he felt quite content with -what he had accomplished.

XXX
|BNER was completely exhausted, and 2 slept soundly, not waking till he was I called, shortly after sunrise, by Mrs. } Wilson.
"You'd better git up an' git sorne'n' t'eat," she said, in a tone which, somehow, perplexed him. Dressing hurriedly, he went out on the entry and bathed his face and hands in a big tin pan on the water-shelf, drying them on a fresh towel hang ing from a roller against the wall. Through an open door of the big kitchen he saw a white cloth on a table, and caught the aroma of strong coffee and fried ham and eggs. His appetite, always good, was unusually sharp. In the centre of the table was a great plate of hot, brown biscuits. He paused in the kitchen door, his eyes twinkling with delight.
" Lord, this is a treat, Mrs. Wilson!" he exclaimed. She turned and looked at him for an instant, and shrugged her shoulders. "Pull up yore chair," she said, shortly. Abner looked about him wonderingly. "Say," he asked, "hain't Abe up yit?" " Huh, hain't he?" she grunted, " I say hain't he!" "Look here, Mrs. Wilson," Abner exclaimed, aghast, "whar's Abe?" " You'd better ax me whar he hain't," she retorted,
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her eyes flashing angrily. " Ef you want me to treat you decent, Mr. Daniel, an' give you breakfast under my roof, you'd better set down an' eat, an' not ask me too many questions. I'm a heavy sleep er. Abe got to studyin' over it all, I reckon, an' got up an' went off in the night."
"Good Lord, Mrs. Wilson!" Abner stood trans fixed with surprise.
"Don't say 'Good Lord' to me," snapped the an gry woman; "say it to somebody else. I want to tell you one thing, sir, an' that is that I'm sick an' tired o' bein' treated like a hound dog. I married Abe fer better or fer wuss, an' I'm tired o' havin' 'im chased away from the only home he's got, by anybody or fer any purpose. Ef Si Warren has to die, let 'im die. I've got rights as well as he has."
Abner refused to sit down; his appetite had sud denly left him. Abashed by the woman's sudden outburst, he moved to the door and stood looking into the yard disconsolately.
" I hadn't the slightest idea Abe would take that turn," he said, in a propitiatory tone.
"Well, he tuck it," the woman said, " an' I reckon I'm goin' to live without 'im right on like I was. Last night I dreamt he was home to stay, an' was makin' a big crop o' corn an' wheat, an' I woke up to-- Look y' here, Mr. Daniel, ef you want to eat yore breakfast in peace, you'd better set down to it. I hain't more'n human. I've always been raised to be polite in my house, especially over victuals; but I can't stand too much. I'm sick an' tired. I don't know what I mought say."
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fuU of regret and sympathy. "Abe's makin' a big,

big, mistake, Mrs. Wilson," he said. "Jest as shore

as you're alive, ef he'd 'a' rid down to the squire's

with me this mornin', he'd 'a' come straight back to

you with a clean conscience, an' you'd had 'im with

you in peace an' quiet. That's God's truth."

Mrs. Wilson was looking directly at him. She

hesitated, and then gave over to conviction. Her lip

quivered.

" Oh, I don't know what to do! Forgive me, Mr.

Daniel," she faltered. "A woman wrought up like

me hain't responsible; an' it seems to me I jest can't

live on like I've been a-livin'. Abe hain't much of

a man, in any light, but he's all I got, an' it's hard

to see 'im run from piller to post like--"

Abner put out his hand and touched hers. "I'm

goin' to help you out o' yore trouble," he said. " Do

you hear me? I'm goin' to git at Abe, by some

hook or crook, an' show 'im how plumb foolish his

course is."

"Oh, ef you only would," the "woman cried, "I'd

bless you to the end o' my days!"

Abner was looking at the soft soil near the door

step. He started and looked again. It was the

fresh imprint of a bare foot. " Did you make that?"

he asked the woman.

She looked at the track.

"No," she said, wonderingly; "Abe's foot made

that; he was totin' his shoes in his hand, so he could

step light."

Abner looked further. He saw other tracks; they

led across the cow-lot to the barn. He traversed

the lot, and went into the little building made of

'

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pine poles. The first stall was empty, and on the edge of the wooden horse-trough, directly under a square opening leading up to the loft, which was filled with loose hay, Abner detected a bit of the damp, black loam of the cow-lot.
"The dern skunk's roostin' up thar," he said to himself, with a gratified chuckle. "He's thar, as shore as fate."
There was a small quantity of dry hay on the floor, and Abner saw at a glance that it might be burned without the slightest danger to the building, and he smiled as he filled his pipe, struck a match and lighted it, and then deliberately applied the flame to the hay. The blaze, accompanied by a dense smoke and a crackling sound, rapidly mount ed towards the opening overhead. Abner stood in the barn door and raised his voice.
"Oh, Mrs. Wilson!" he called out. " I've dropped a match an' set yore barn afire. Ef thar's any live-stock in the stalls we'd better git 'em out. This thing's goin' up like powder."
There was a noise overhead. Some bundles of fodder fell through the opening; a hen left her nest in the loft and with a scream flew over Abner's shoulder to the door. A pair of feet, in heavy, un tied shoes, appeared in the opening. They were at tached to moving ankles and legs. The startled face of Abe Wilson next rose into view. He scram bled down and joined Abner in stamping out the flames.
" You was up thar looking fer fresh eggs, I reckon," Abner remarked, carelessly, just as Mrs. Wilson ar rived and beat out the last flickering flame with a
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horse-blanket. " I heard you scare that hen off the nest. Breakfast is ready, Abe; we'd better eat a snack an' ride down to the squire's."
" I was packin' away some fodder up thar," Wil son said, expiring traces of fear still in his face. " I'll go to the house an' wash up. I'm ready to do the fair thing, Daniel."
Abner and Mrs. Wilson followed at his heels. Once she glanced up at Daniel and smiled, admiringly. "You do beat the Dutch!" she whispered. ''I've been a-studyin'. I believe you set that hay afire o' purpose."

XXXI
3 HAT evening at the hotel in Charles(ton, after Carlton Blathwait had left ) the parlor, Mrs. Winston went to her ? daughter's room. She found the girl _} seated at a window looking out into the street. The gas was not burning, and the lightcolored gown the young lady wore showed clearly against the dark background. Mrs. Winston paused in the centre of the room to remove her gloves; she seemed to be troubled about something, for she started twice to speak, and checked herself before finally breaking the silence. Presently she laid one of her bare hands on her daughter's shoulder and said: "I'm sorry that thing happened this afternoon, my dear." "Then Mr. Blathwait told you," said Miss Win ston. "It didn't matter, mother." "No, Miss Craigmiles mentioned it," said the old lady. " She was waiting as we got out of the car riage, to apologize. She felt awfully put out about it. She said she wouldn't have introduced such a topic for the world if she had dreamt that you were not our own child." " I was not thinking of her," said the girl, wearily. " I have not thought once of what she said since she left."
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"Then" -- Mrs. Winston paused in surprise -- "what did you think I meant?"
There was silence. The girl sat like a figure in stone, her slender hands clasped listlessly in her lap.
The old lady stood hesitatingly for a moment. Then she drew up a chair and sat down, the skirt of her black silk gown touching her daughter's. She took a deep, resolute breath. " I noticed how put out Mr. Blathwait looked," she said. "He seemed rather constrained after you left the room. He has proposed, or intimated that he "wanted to pay his addresses, and you have turned him away. I see it now. Well, I wouldn't let that bother me. I could have told him you didn't love him. He's a busi ness man, and is too precipitate. I knew he ad mired you; but I didn't quite expect--"
"Oh, mother, it wasn't that; he doesn't care for me that way."
"You say it wasn't that! Then what under the sun was it, my dear?"
Miss Winston shrugged her shoulders and bowed her head slightly. Then, in a voice that shook, she said:
"That Mr. Blanton, who came with Miss Craigmiles, entertained the room with accounts of Eric Vaughn's bad character and numerous escapades. I tried not to listen, and finally succeeded in chang ing the subject. But after they had left, and Mr. Blathwait and I were alone, Mr. Blathwait said Eric--Eric Vaughn--was a friend of his, and began to apologize for him, mother, just as if--as if he knew all the circumstances and was sorry for me!"
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"Oh, my dear, I hope you didn't--" " I simply begged him not to mention Eric Vaughn's name to me." The girl turned her head proudly and gave her mother a steady glance. '' How do I know that Mr. B lathwait has not heard that entire story ? If--if Eric--if Eric Vaughn is the sort of man people say he is, then he would be glad to tell a thing like that at clubs. Some men boast of --of the conquests of their young days." "Stop, my dear, don't go to extremes," Mrs. Winston chided her gently. " Heaven knows, I have always resented that young man's treatment of you. I'm sure he might have acted more like a gentleman under such delicate circumstances. Even now--you see I'm speaking plainly; I have to, to make you un derstand--even if he did realize, after your sudden departure, that -- that he did not love you quite as a man ought to love the woman he married, he ought to have regarded you, at least, as an old friend, after the general and I took you to our hearts and made your position in the world as good as his. So sometimes I have fancied that there might--I say might---be some mistake. Mistakes happen so easily among young people. Do you know, the idea once came into my old head that perhaps Mr. Warren, in his stubborn hatred for him, may have taken back some false message from you--may have, you know, told Eric Vaughn something that would have kept him from ever approaching you again." "I don't believe it;" the girl resolutely shook her head. "It is not like my father." "Don't, dear!" The exclamation was as if it had been evoked by sharp inward pain, and the old lady
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leaned forward and took the girl's hand and pressed it. '' You have no idea how it hurts me to hear you speak so easily, so naturally, of him as your father."
"It slipped out," Miss Winston said, with a sigh. "I have to call him something. I can't speak of my own--I couldn't call him Warren, or Si Warren, as other people did up there, "where he "was despised by all his neighbors."
" No, of course not, but I am jealous, dear, and the general feels as I do. He would have sworn if he had seen you pass through that ordeal Miss Craigmiles thrust upon you this afternoon. Besides, its all rubbish about the superiority of the Winstons, anyway. From "what you have told me of--of your own mother, she belonged to as good a family as we do. She was poor, and married for love, that's all. Many of my people have done that. Yes, I'm jeal ous, Marie, I confess it. After waiting so many years for a daughter of my own to love, and I came across you--you poor, dear child--at death's door, and suffering as you were with all your sensitive spirit had to bear, I opened my heart to you, and I have loved you ever since as if you were my own. Yes, I thank God for you, and if He will only give you happiness I shall die content. You have been a darling daughter to us, and the thought that you are tied by birth and sympathy to another almost kills me. Dear, I have a confession to make. It was wrong of me, but I could not help it. Marie, I have read several of the letters you have "written him. I saw you writing them, and knew from your face that they concerned your past. Will you forgive me?"
"That "was nothing," the girl sighed. "I felt 285

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that it \vas really my duty to communicate with

him. I have never felt right about deserting him,

even if he did make my life and my mother's un

bearable; he was, after all, my own flesh and blood,

and if I'd--"

he

were

to

be

sick,

unhappy,

or need

me,

"Don't, don't!" Mrs. Winston cried; "don't say it." She sat with her face covered for a moment, then she said, softly: "In the letter you wrote him last winter, darling, you actually offered to go back to him, if he wished it, and would have faith in your honor and purity. Ah, that almost tore my heart from my body! I--I was afraid he would tell you to come."
"You saw that letter?" exclaimed the girl. "I did not want you to see that particular one. It would have killed me to have given you up--in fact, I hoped I might still retain your love and sympathy, and go to comfort him if he needed me. I offered to send him money if he wanted it."
" I did not see his answer." Mrs. Winston's voice had sunken low. " I was nearly crazy for two months afterwards. Do you care to tell me what he said?"
"He ignored my prayer for him to have faith in me," Marie answered. "He said he had all the comforts he needed, and hoped I would not write him again. He put it very plainly."
There was a sound from the drawing-rooms be low ; the members of the orchestra were tuning their instruments. A call-bell was ringing in the office.
"There is one thing, Marie, that hurts more than all," Mrs. Winston said, softly. "My dear, there
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are women and women in this world; some that have no hearts, and there are some that never love but once in their lives, no matter how unworthy the object of their affections proves. My dear, I love you well enough and know you well enough to fear that your whole heart went out in your girlhood to--" Mrs. Winston choked up.
Marie was silent; she turned her face farther from the speaker, her glance on the lights in the street.
Mrs. Winston finally steadied her voice. "Yes, that is what hurts most of all," she said. "Women who don't have love's reward are never very happy in life, and I rebel against that being your fate, espe cially after the awful misery of your childhood and the unpleasant memories you have borne since you came to us. Sometimes I think, my dear, that if-- now, please forgive me--if Eric Vaughn were to see you--see what a beautiful and accomplished wom an you have grown to be--he would admire you as-- other men have. You know he has never even seen you since you left Georgia."
"Yes, he has, mother." "What! You mean--" The girl rose and stood at her full height at the window, the white lace curtains parting over her head and shoulders. "Yes, he's seen me, mother; he's not only seen me, but he knew me, and purposely avoided me." "You don't mean that, surely!" Mrs. Winston exclaimed, incredulously. "It was summer before last," Marie explained, quite calmly; "at Battery Park Hotel, in Asheville. You remember how the whole house was upturned
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in making preparations for the entertainment of what all the conservative people said was the fast set from Atlanta. You remember the special din ing-room with the long table decorated with flowers, and the wagon-loads of champagne and boxes of German favors that were brought in?"
"Yes, I remember; the party came the day we left. The general said he didn't get half attention, and was angry about it; the servants were all in a bunch waiting for the new arrivals."
"Eric Vaughn was in the party," said Miss Winston. "They arrived half an hour before we were to drive to the station. You and father were not quite ready, and I was waiting for you in the big parlor where the musicians play. I was strolling towards one of the verandas--the one from which you can see Biltmore, you remember. The sun was shining brightly, and I never was more observable than at that moment. He came in at the door, and we met face to face. His eyes were on me. Ah, he knew me, for he stared and actually looked abashed. I saw him hesitate over what to do, and then he dropped his eyes and coldly stalked by me. Mother, he simply gave me to understand that he did not care to meet me again. It was the only time I ever was cut; but that's what it was--a de liberate cut."
" I wonder if you could not be mistaken about it," the old lady mused. "Conduct like that seems so unlike that of a man who passes in society as a gentleman."
"No, I was not mistaken," the girl said. "I sat down on the veranda waiting for you, and he came
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back and took a seat not far from me. I tried not to see him, but I couldn't help it. He looked so worn out and changed, and, oh, it had been so long! Mother, it was--was like--like seeing some one you once cared for rise from the dead. He was ashamed to meet my eyes, and looked down every time I glanced in his direction. Then I got my pride up. I saw you coming, and rose and walked past him. Somehow, I had the courage to do it, and I stared at him deliberately, coldly, and almost contemptuous ly as .1 went by him. I wanted him to realize the contempt I had for him. He was white and red by turns, and it seemed to me that a look of actual fear swept over him. I suppose he was afraid I was going to speak to him. Mother, I have never forgiven him for that. He may regret that we ever knew each other, but you know how you would feel under such treatment."
" I declare," the old lady said, reflectively; "sure ly there must be some mistake. I remember how silent you were all that day. It worried me. I thought it was something else."

XXXII
2N lieu of the extraordinary testimony y forthcoming, the court granted War| ren a new trial. On the public an) nouncement of the fact a storm of ob_ _ ,, i jection rose from the opposition, which was now even more fiercely combated by those who had all along favored the prisoner. The town and country-side could talk of nothing else. The Darley Item, whose columns had bitterly con tended for an example being made of Warren, that lynchings, rapine, and murder might decrease, print ed a full - page editorial against the action of the court, which crowded out many paid advertisements. Several years before, a cold-blooded murder had been committed on a citizen by a man by the name of Thickstun, who had fled the country and never been caught. Part of the editorial was a caustic letter addressed to him, in the following strain:
"Hon. William Thickstun, Esq., Wherever-you-are, U. S. A. "HONORED SIR,--This is to let you know that the
latch-string of Darley is hanging on the outside. Come home. Nobody will disturb you; we are a forgiving people. Our brass band will meet you at the train; we will give you a barbecue in the park and a reception at the house of one of our best citizens. Our ladies, Mr. Thickstun, will bring you plenty of sweet-smelling flowers, and you will be

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assigned to the bridal-chamber at the hotel. We've got a good ball team, who will show you a fine game, and our brag murderer, who recently laid low one of our most popular citizens, will likely be released and will do the town with you and join you in seeing which can kill the most women and children in the same time. We all see how deeply we wronged you in letting our fool marshal run after you and offer rewards for your capture. Merriweather was a good man, in his way; but he "wasn't pro gressive like you; he never drank a drop in his life, and never killed anybody; besides, he is dead and you are not. It's the living we honor in Darley. He had no business going out in town that day, anyway. He ought to have known you were on a rampage. Come on home; we've got one hero, and are hungry for more."
On a corner of the main street, near the postoffice, an ardent speaker was defending Warren's cause to a group of eager listeners, and in the next block a briefless lawyer, with a young, smooth face, was showing Warren's deliberate guilt to another cluster.
Above all this excitement, Abner Daniel found Eric Vaughn seated at a window in his office, his face quite grave.
" Did sech a state of affairs ever exist anywhar else on earth?" the old man asked, with a slow smile.
" If so, I have never heard of it," Eric responded, gladly welcoming his old friend. " Have you seen Warren?"
" Yes, I was at his cell a minute ago. Hammond had been thar tellin' the pore fellow that he had a good case, an' Warren was feelin' encouraged, but a feller in the court-house yard begun talkin' loud agin 'im, an' Warren heard it, an' got flat on his back once more.
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"'I hain't wuth it all, Daniel,' he kept sayin' to me; 'but I don't "want to be hung. The Bible says "an eye fer an eye," an' I'm willin' to die sudden, like Buford did, but I don't want to be hung that away.' "
"Has Abe Wilson come yet?" Eric asked, with a shudder.
"Oh yes; he's here all right; his wife's a bully woman; she fetched 'im to taw. She got Hammond to talk to 'im, an' now Abe's all right. He'll testify straight enough, an' stand under cross-examination."
The court-room was packed to the doors and win dows. Chairs and camp-stools had been placed in side the railing which surrounded the judge's bench, that as many spectators as possible might be given seats. The greater part of the first day was devoted to the task of selecting a jury acceptable to both sides of the case, and this was difficult, owing to the fact that there were few who had not already expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. However, early the next morning everything was in readiness and the trial proceeded.
The State solicitor, Alfred Henslaw, a powerful physical specimen of manhood, of middle age, with a massive head, a shock of iron - gray hair, and a heavy, sweeping mustache, sat chewing the end of an unlighted cigar, his calm, gray eyes aglow with intellectual apathy as to the outcome. Hammond, perhaps five years older, thin of form and face, his eyes dark and piercing, a man of nervous and highstrung temperament, offered a worthy contrast. The two had met many times before in like contests, and called each other familiarly " Alf " and "Joe."
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Warren sat at Hammond's right, a panting, be wildered remnant of masculinity, bowed, shrunken, ghastly pale, his bony hands clasped tightly, as if to stop their visible quivering.
The first surprise in the conduct of the case came in the large number of men and women Abner Daniel had quietly gathered to testify to Warren's general good behavior when not under the influence of liquor. The prisoner sat facing these witnesses, and as favorable statements began to come from lips he had thought only open to condem nation, he broke down and sobbed. There was no pretence about his emotion; even Henslaw was af fected by it, and the would-be caustic cross-ques tions he had on his tongue had a forced ring and fell flat. Against this testimony, somehow, the proof which he adduced that Warren, under the influence of drink, was a dangerous man, had little weight. The audience felt that the jury were in sympathy with the prisoner, and they themselves were swept that way. Witnesses who on the former trial had spoken forcibly of Warren's bad character now talked hesitatingly, and had to have their previous statements drawn out of them by the adroit solic itor, who more than once reproved them for their indecision.
Upon this Hammond threw the direct testimony of Abe Wilson, who seemed suddenly to have grown to manhood. He stood straight in the witness-box and looked about him fearlessly; he seemed to feel the importance of what he was doing, and undoing. The composite stare of sympathy from the twelve pairs of eyes before him seemed to give him moral
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backbone. He answered questions without hesita tion and to the point. He had seen Buford with his revolver directed at Warren fully fifteen seconds before the prisoner fired, and had heard Warren act ually begging for his life, circumstances, he said, that Warren might have been too drunk to recall, but \vhich had fastened themselves on his memory.
A murmur passed over the room. Listeners who were eagerly bending forward that they might not lose a word, a facial expression, or a tone of voice, were lashed with emotional astonishment. Was it possible that so many had been blind to the true state of affairs ? Those who had fought for Warren were silently weeping with joy and glancing trium phantly across the room at one another and making hopeful signals. Those who had fought him fell into silence--the slow silence of growing realization of the false ground they had impulsively taken, rather than resentment; they were seeing the whole matter in a new light; they were getting behind the wall made of Warren's past record, and were seeing his single act in the glare of the open light of reason. The solicitor tried to impeach Wilson's testimony, but he could find no one who would swear he would not believe him under oath.
At this juncture Abner saw Eric Vaughn leaning against the rear wall of the room, his eyes fixed on the floor, the warm color of hope in his cheeks. The old man went back to him.
"We are goin' to hear some'n' drap as shore's preachin'," Abner declared, in an earnest whisper. "I never seed Henslaw look so whipped in my life. I've watched 'im before; when he grins that "way the
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jig's up with 'im. My boy, I'll be danged ef I don't believe that jury's goin' to clear Warren! They are full to the neck with pity--the last one as sorry as sorry kin be, an' when Hammond makes his speech they will want to vote before they leave the'r seats."
Eric snrled, but he said nothing. The solicitor was speaking to the jury. What he said was a mere acknowledgment of a weak case, as Abner expressed it with a nudge to Eric, " a sort o' step down."
It was expected of Hammond that he would make a speech of several hours' duration; but he assumed another tack. Silence at this crisis would be golden. He felt, he told the jury, that it would insult such a reasonable body of men to pound argument at them which their intelligence had already absorbed. At the former trial much stress had been laid upon the fact that Warren had on former occasions, when drunk, attempted human life. "They may have established their contentions on that ground, or they may not; at any rate, gentlemen of the jury, Warren is not under trial for those offences, and it is your plain duty as men, as law-abiding citizens, to dismiss them from your minds, and consider the evidence on this charge alone. The whole county has been in a tumult of excitement, madly crying for this poor creature's life; let your verdict, gentle men, rebuke such mad haste, and endorse the ac tion of the calm, Christian men and women "who have been bent on seeing common justice meted out to this unfortunate man. Gentlemen, I leave the case in your hands, but thank God, I read your verdict in your eyes. I can't be fooled in men. I
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read the conviction of your hearts in your open faces. Warren is innocent. You feel it. You know it."
He sat down. Actual applause was rising, and the judge rebuked it. Later he charged the jury. It could not have been said that the charge leaned either way. It was just, it was the law; the gist of it was that if the jury believed Wilson had sworn the truth, Warren was not guilty, and had a right to liberation.
The room was breathlessly still. The clattering tread of the jurymen, as they awkwardly marched in single file from the room to the door held open by a bailiff, rang harshly. Abner Daniel noted every detail. He saw the broad sunshine as it fell through the windows on the touseled heads of a bench full of men from the mountains. He leaned towards Eric Vaughn.
"What do you think they'll do?" he asked. "It looks like freedom," Eric answered, a warm light in his eyes. " I don't believe they'll be long about it, nuther," Abner responded. He put his hand on Eric's arm almost caressingly for an instant, then he turned and walked straight to Warren, who looked up as Abner's hand rested on his shrunken shoulder. "You are all right, Si," he said. Warren's moist, bloodshot eyes expanded under their bushy brows. " I hain't wuth it, Daniel," he said. " I tell you I hain't wuth it!" " Yes, you are, Si," Abner contradicted. " They're jest tryin' to give you jestice--that's all." "Then you think thar's a chance, to--" Warren
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choked up, but he still glared anxiously into Aimer's face. *
" I think every man in that jury-room is a drappin' a not-guilty verdict in a hat right now. What did I tell you? Thar they come; that's quick work!''
The twitching shadow of an awful fear lay on Warren's face as the jurymen shambled in, their eyes on him. He looked like a lost soul peering from lonely space, awaiting the command of Deity to fall or rise, to exist or die. The foreman was hold ing out a paper to the solicitor, who opened it and read aloud:
" We, the jury, find the prisoner not guilty." There was complete silence. Then five hundred pairs of strained eyes saw Warren rise to his feet. He stood tottering, swaying from side to side, try ing to speak. His gray head sank to his breast, and he fell forward. He had fainted. A physician sprang to his aid; he ordered a bench vacated, and he and Abner Daniel laid Warren on it. It was an exciting moment. The news spread through the room and out on the streets that Warren, under the good news, had died of heart disease. Presently, however, Warren sat up. He seemed dazed at first, staring inquiringly into the faces around him, and then he seemed to remember. A hint of color ran into his face; he insisted on standing, and as he did so, aided by Daniel, he began to speak, tremulously: " I thank you, judge," he said. " I thank the jury. I thank them thar witnesses that said thar was a speck o' good left in me. Gen--tie--men, you've gi' me my life." His voice rose high, hung, and then broke; he stood gasping for breath, making a
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wheezing sound that was heard throughout the en tire room. By an effort he raised his head and steadied it. "I want to thank everybody that thought well an' helped in my case," he said. "Judge, I swore the truth--Abe swore the truth; Buford was tryin' to kill me when I shot."
"We all believe you, Warren," the judge said, as Warren sank back into his seat; '' you are a sick man, and must have medical attention and com forts. Mr. Sheriff, see to it that Warren has every thing he needs. If the county doesn't pay for it, I will. The other trial was mismanaged, somehow."
As the big crowd surged out to spread the news over the town and country, Abner joined Eric in the court-house yard.
"My boy," said the old man, enthusiastically, "you've won the most glorious battle that was ever fought.''
Eric made no response. It was as if he were afraid of trusting his voice to utterance. Together the two walked down towards the centre of the town.

XXXIII
was a clear, crisp morning, a week , later. The autumn leaves were fall3 ing, some yellow, some red, some dead I crisp and brown, as Abner Daniel went 5 through the woods to reach Eric's plan tation by a short cut. He found his young friend not far from the farm-house, superintending the construction of a modern gin and presses for hay and cotton. Half a dozen expert workmen were putting up the frame of a two-storied building on massive pine sills, supported by pillars of cement and mountain rock, and Eric stood at a carpenter's bench, with the blue, white-lined architect's draw ings before him. "New broom sweeps clean," the old man jested, as Eric looked up, " but you really seem to be havin' fun out of it." " I wonder that I didn't get down to it before," Eric said. " I give you my word, Uncle Abner, that I have never in my life enjoyed anything so much as I do being my own boss in something which means actual, visible advancement, however small." " Yo're obeyin' one o' the laws o' life--the chiet one, in fact," the old farmer replied, smiling. " Man was meant to work, an' he was meant to enjoy it." "Would you believe it," Eric said, "I was going
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over my books, last night, and I see that only since I have been looking after matters here I have saved myself a loss of two thousand dollars. There were hundreds of leaks. I have stopped them all. Un cle Abner, I can pay the place out of debt within the next year."
"The debt is the most glorious thing about it," the old man said, warmly. "I'd almost hate to pay off a debt like that. I'd be willin' to die a pauper if I could tote a thing like that to my grave."
Eric's face was swept by the shadow of a sudden thought.
"Have you seen Warren lately?" he questioned. "We fetched 'im back to his house last night," Abner said. "That's what I come over to tell you. He wasn't strong enough to move, railly; but he kept beggin' so hard to be tuck back home that the doctor give in. Mrs. Dilworthy got the house in order--his bed an' chair--an' I hauled 'im a load o' wood, an' had one o' my hands cut it up. I went over to see 'im jest now; he was the happiest old thing God ever made, potterin' about in the yard, sayin' he intends to have this an' that improvement made. He thinks he's goin' to live right on, but he hain't. The look o' death is on his face an' in his shaky limbs; he'll have his wish though, not to die in public." "Yes, he'll have that," Eric responded, thought fully. Just then one of the carpenters came to ask Eric some question about the work, and with a gesture of his ever-polite hand to both of them, Abner turn ed and walked away.
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He had just climbed over the worm-fence, which was half covered with wild vines, and was entering the wood beyond, when a sound fell on his ears. It was like the pawing of an animal, and, looking into a dense coppice, he saw old Henry Vaughn, ridingwhip in hand., standing by his horse, peering out at Eric. He glanced up, and, seeing Abner, a sheepish flush stole into his face. His lips quivered. He had the look of a man stumbling towards subterfuge. But the farmer was too quick for him.
" I know what you are up to," Abner twitted him. "You sly old hawk, you are tryin' to see ef Eric's railly at work."
Vaughn grunted, thrust the butt of his whip against his short, tobacco-worn teeth, and flushed redder. " I was on my way over the mountain to Treadwell's. He's owin' me a note that's past due. Some think he's gittin' shaky; at any rate, I want to take a look at my collateral--see ef he's keepin' the mill up properly an' accordin' to con tract. An' I 'lowed, bein' as I was passin' so nigh, I'd jest stop a minute--"
"Well, you could stand thar till you tuck root an' sprouted," Abner broke in, "an' you'd see Eric doin' some'n' or other every hour in the day."
Vaughn threw his left arm over the neck of his horse; he had other explanations forthcoming to disabuse Abner's mind of any tendency on his part to weakness in regard to his son.
"The boy's mammy's been goin' on at sech a ter rible rate about 'im bein' worked to death that I jest 'lowed I'd see fer myself. He's likely doin' it all fer effect--he thinks I won't live long, an' sence
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that--that feller Bowman left I reckon Eric thinks I'm ready to believe white's black, an' kill the fatted calf, as the feller said, an' let him start out ag'in with his outlandish way o' livin'. But he can't ketch me with that sort o' bait, nur you can't nuther, Ab Daniel. Money wasn't made to throw to the winds."
A fierce, resentful light dawned in Daniel's eyes. His face was red and swept by splotches of angrywhite. There was a fallen tree behind him, and he sat down on its trunk and thrust his cane into the ground and leaned on it.
" Dern yore rusty old hide, Henry Vaughn," he said, " I'm a good mind to take off my coat an' give you a good whippin'."
"Don't be a fool," Vaughn retorted, indifferently. " It hain't none o' yore business, nohow. It hain't yore money -- anybody kin dictate a lots when it hain't the'r effects that's goin' to waste. It's a seri ous thing to think o' me dyin' an' leavin' that boy to go hellward ag'in with what I've raked an' scraped together. He showed what sort o' capers he'd cut when he had money, an' now you an' his ma want to contend that a little spurt o' work like that thar is a sufficient guarantee o' what he will do in time to come. You an' her talk like ever' other man an' woman talks that never made money. Ef you talked different you'd 'a' acted different, an' may be you'd 'a' had some sort o' cash backin'. I hain't reproachin' you fer not havin' money; in fact, some times I think money is a cuss. So fur, mine has swore at me mighty nigh ever' hour in the day, an' kept me awake at night. But me 'n' you ortn't
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to quarrel, Ab, we've been friends a long, long time."
"It's beca'se you don't appreciate that boy that makes me hot," Abner declared, still furious. " By God, Henry Vaughn, I'd ruther know that Eric sprung from my loins than to have every dirty dol lar that ever passed through yore claws! The idea o' you -- you findin' fault with a piece o' human metal that's as much finer 'n the stuff you are made out of as gold is finer 'n pig-iron. We was boys to gether, wasn't we, Henry Vaughn ?"
"What's the use o' axin sech a fool question?" Vaughn's eyes were on the movements of his son. Eric had climbed a ladder to a high scaffold, and stood by a workman with whom he seemed to be in consultation.
"We was boys together," Abner continued, "an' sometimes we told one another secrets--things we couldn't tell now without a blush. I was bad enough, the Lord knows, but I've thought a thousand times about the wust thing I ever done as a boy was to lis ten to some'n' you once told me, without havin' the moral manhood to tell you what I thought about it. That's a weakness the best o' men has. Thar hain't one man in ten thousand that will reprove another man fer a certain sort o' wrong-doin'. But I'm here to do my duty now, Henry, beca'se it proves Eric's superiority to the male stock he sprung from."
"What are you talkin' about?" Vaughn asked, curiously.
" Dern yore old, dried-up soul, I'll bet it's gone clean out o' yore mind! Well, I kin tell you it's give me the all-overs many a time. Do you remem-
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ber comin' to me one day, jest after you'd cast yore fust vote? You said you was in a devil of a mess with a young woman, the daughter of one o' yore daddy's overseers."
"Huh!" Vaughn ejaculated, and he looked away to avoid Abner's eyes; "what's the use o' bringin' that up?"
"You'll see the use 'fore I'm through with you, you rusty old cuss!" Abner went on, vindictively. " Fer about two months along about then you never slept sound. You kept a-comin' to me fer advice, an' ef I'd 'a' been the right sort of a man I'd 'a' talked different from what I did. I seed that pore, white-faced gal comin' to meetin' Sunday after Sun day, a-settin' thar, on the women's side o' the house, lookin' fust at the preacher, an' then at you, as ef you was the only God in the universe that could do her any good. It mighty nigh worried me to death. But you come over to my farm one night on yore fast trottin'-hoss, with a whole lot o' fine cigars an' a bottle o' rye, an' said it was all settled. You said you felt like nyin'. She was goin' to marry a galoot that you'd give a little money to -- a low-browed feller that said it didn't make no odds to him what she done. Her daddy was afeard he'd lose his job, an' he kept a civil tongue in his head, an' the happy pair--the live one an' the dead one--moved out West. The'r goin' wiped yore dirty soul as clean as rotten-stone will burnish a piece of brass. By God, it wouldn't surprise me right now to hear that you didn't even know whether she was alive or dead! Do you, Henry Vaughn?"
"What's the use bringin' up sech--" Vaughn be34

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gan, half angrily, half cowed by Abner's accusations; but Abner interrupted him.
"I'll tell you the use; I want you to see yorese'f by comparison to yore son. Yore boy come along in the same hot-blooded way as you did at the same age, but he wasn't as coarse--he'd got some'n' from his mammy's side that refined 'im an' lifted 'im higher than ordinary young men. He fell in love with the purtiest young thing God ever made. She was the daughter of the most disreputable man in this county." Abner paused. Vaughn's eyes were fixed on his face in a stare of curiosity they had never held before. "I hardly know how to go on," Ab ner said. "The two was together a good deal, an' her devil of a daddy got a wrong impression. He believed Eric had ruined the gal, when he was as pure an' innocent as an angel in heaven. He tuck the gal off an' she died. Eric loved 'er so devotedly that, along o' the nasty charge agin him an' her, he lost heart an' went to the dogs. He didn't have a soul to confide in; he locked his secret up inside of 'im, an' started on the road to hell. Five years afterwards a good influence come in his life--he met a man that turned 'im around, an' he went to you with good intentions, an'--"
"An' broke every promise he made," Vaughn growled, his anger rising; "after promising me never to gamble ag'in as long as he lived, an'--"
"He never spent another cent that "way," Abner interrupted him; " not a cent went in any way that I would not glory in seein' a son o' mine spend it in."
"What do you mean?" Vaughn's voice rose in surprise.

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"When he had settled down, accordin' to prom ise," Abner answered, "and was making headway, just as he is now, the gravest problem of his life faced 'im. The gal's daddy--the daddy of his fust an' only sweetheart--was falsely accused o' murder. He hadn't a friend on earth, an' the whole countrywas down on 'im. Eric believed he was innocent. He saved his life once from a lynchin' gang, an' then mortgaged his plantation to raise the money, and went ahead an' employed the best legal aid in Georgia, at enormous expenses, an' finally won the grandest fight that was ever fought. He saved the father of his dead love from an unjust and ignomin ious death. He knowed it would, maybe, cost him his inheritance from you, fer he didn't believe you'd sanction sech a thing, but he didn't care. He was thinking of his one and only love, the love o' his boyhood; and I'm here to say to you that you-- daddy that you are -- ort to stand abashed before sech a man; you, who couldn't 'a' done what he did to save yore soul from the hot grasp o' hell! That's iwnh'--y "I feel like takin' a hickory switch an' thres-
Abner paused. Vaughn had lowered his head to the neck of his horse and was very still. Only the top of his hat was in view. Presently he walked round behind the animal, his face working as with an inward convulsion. He sat down on the log by Abner and crossed his feet in front of him.
"You say Eric did that?" he faltered, in a husky voice. " Eric was at the bottom of all that ?"
Abner nodded. " Bottom, top, an' middle," he answered. His anger was all gone; there was some-
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thing in Vaughn's eyes he had never expected to see there -- tears, genuine crystal tears, and they rolled unheeded down Vaughn's furrowed cheeks.
"An' I didn't know it," he sobbed. "I was agin 'irn; I was threatenin' to give his inheritance away to a thief and a fraud--me, his daddy!"
There was silence for several minutes. Abashed by it all, and full of sudden sympathy, Abner found himself unable to say anything. Presently, Vaughn got out his handkerchief, and, without shame, open ly wiped his eyes.
"What kin I do?" he asked, helplessly. "Do?" said Daniel, "why, jest go over thar whar he's at work. Don't say anything about what I told you, but jest show 'im--jest show the boy he's got a daddy f" Vaughn took to the suggestion. Hitching his horse to a tree, with clumsy fingers, he climbed over the fence and trudged across the field. With eyes that were dim, Daniel saw Eric come down the lad der and clasp the outstretched hand of his father. They walked off together. Abner saw Eric put his arm around his father's waist. Old Vaughn was wiping his eyes.

XXXIV
SjT -was a cold, rainy night towards the ) latter part of September. Eric and > Lewis were seated before a big log fire \ in the sitting-room of the farm-house. _ _ j Eric had just finished reading some let ters the old negro had brought from Darley, when, without rapping, or giving notice in any way of his approach, Abner Daniel stalked into the room, the water dripping from his slouch hat and the old gray shawl which he usually wore in bad weather. He asked Lewis to put his horse under a shed and give him a bundle of fodder, and when the negro had gone, he stood on the broad stone hearth in a veritable cloud of steam which rose from his clothing. "I've just read a letter from Blathwait," Eric in formed him. "You say you have," the old man said, absently. "What's he got to say?" "He's gone West to build a railroad," said Eric. " He's writing me, rather particularly, it seems to me, about some new friends he has made in New Orleans--General Winston and his wife, and an interesting daughter by adoption. The strangest part of it is that Blathwait seems to think I have met the girl somewhere. He doesn't say why he's so
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curious about it, but he begs me to inform him at once if I know her."
"Huh, you don't say!" Abner took off his hat and shook it over the hot ashes. " He may be thinkin' o' marryin'. Well, I reckon ef anybody kin af ford the luxury of a wife he kin. Maybe he wants you to sorter endorse her."
" Oh, I don't think it's that at all!" Kric answered. " In fact, he doesn't appear to be in love, as beauti ful and attractive as the girl seems to be. That is what is so puzzling. He has actually asked me a dozen questions about a lady I'm sure I've never laid eyes on, and, moreover, he doesn't give the slightest reason for his great interest."
Abner said nothing. It struck Eric that he had an uneasy look, and then it occurred to him, also, that it was a rather unusual thing for the old man to come out in such bad weather, and especially at night. An explanation was forthcoming. Ab ner shrugged his shoulders, and looked towards the door, as if fearing that Lewis might return before he could speak of something on his mind.
"I've been over to Warren's," he suddenly an nounced. He raised a reeking boot to the fire and held it poised in mid-air, balancing himself on the other foot by holding on to the mantel-piece. " I heard this evenin' that he wasn't doin' as well as common. This damp spell hain't seemed to agree with 'im. Mrs. Dilworthy's with 'im now."
"Do you think it is really serious?" Eric asked. Abner changed his position, warming the other foot; he did not glance at the inquirer. "I'm frank to say I didn't like his looks," he re-
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plied. "An' I rid by to tell you he had expressed a desire to see you."
"To see me? Oh no, surely--" "Yes, he wants to see you; an' I think he ort, my boy. Sech things is powerful unpleasant, but ef I was you I'd ride over. You needn't be afraid of a row; he's changed--terribly changed--got sort er childish. The fact is--"--Abner showed con siderable embarrassment -- "the fact is, Eric, I tuck it on myself to do a thing I 'lowed was my duty to--to you, an' him--as a dyin' man--an', in fact, to all concerned. He was considerably both ered about who had befriended 'im at sech great expense durin' his trouble, an' I--" "You told him, Uncle Abner?" Eric exclaimed, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. "Yes, I couldn't believe it ud be right to keep a dyin' man in ignorance on a matter like that, an', my boy, I don't think he kin hardly last through the night. I 'lowed the time had come fer tellin' 'im the truth, anyway, an' I was right. I never seed a human bein' look so quar. Instead o' bein' mad-- like you was afear'd he'd be--he set up in his bed an' actually beamed all over. ' Eric Vaughn done it!' he kept sayin' over an' over. ' I see it all now; he done it! I wonder why I didn't think o' that boy before! Well, well, well!'"
" He didn't resent it, then?" Eric got his breath more freely.
"On the contrary," Abner said, "it melted 'im from head to foot. He cried some; but he stopped talkin' after he told me to send you over. It looked to me like he had some'n' particular to
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sI'ady--je"st to you. So I believe, as soon as I could,
Lewis came in dripping from head to foot. " I'm gwine ter put yo' boss in de stall fer de night, Marse Daniel," he laughed. "No white man hain't gwine way fum we-all's house in er storm like dis; it's rainin' an' blowin' turrible!" "Yes, stay," said Kric, as he rose, "and lend me your horse. I don't want to lose time in getting out mine." " All right, I'll bunk here," Abner decided. " Put on yore rain-coat an' water-boots, an' you'll make it all right, if you kin ford some o' them swelled streams from the mountain." "Good Lord!" protested the negro; "you hain't agwine out in dis storm, Marse Eric!" But Eric did not hear him as he hastened from the room to get ready for his ride.

XXXV

fWENTY minutes later, after a danger-

'} ous ride over a rough, torrent-washed

I road, in a beating rain, and facing

} a wind which threatened at every fresh

__

__ | blast to unseat him, Eric descried a

light shining from a window in Warren's cottage.

Reaching the gate, he dismounted and led the horse

up the weed-grown walk to a stable, which was

really a part of the three-roomed house, being a sort

of lean-to shed with wooden bars at the opening,

rather than a shutter, which might have afforded

partial protection from the weather. Removing

the saddle and bridle, he turned the animal into the

stable, and stepped upon the end of the little porch,

which had been built almost flat upon the ground.

It's decayed flooring crumbled and broke under his

tread as he made his way through the almost pal

pable darkness to where he thought the entrance

would naturally be.

Mrs. Dilworthy heard his step, and came to the

door and opened it.

"Come in, Mr. Eric," she said, "he's in the next

room." She closed the thin shutter, and led him

to a cheerful fire, and took his coat and hat.

"Is he asleep now?" Eric asked.

"No, he's just waked up ag'in; he takes lots o'

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naps like a child; he's been axin' fer you ever since Mr. Daniel left--don't seem to know that it would naturally take time fer a body to go an' come."
There was a low, strained call from the next room, and the sudden creaking of bed-slats.
"You'd better go right in," Mrs. Dilworthy said. "An' while you are here I'll run over to my house. I forgot to feed my pig."
In the dim light of a leaning tallow-dip, stuck in an old tin cup on a table by his bed, lay Warren, a flickering soul clothed in human parchment. He held out his thin hand to Eric with an effort at hos pitality, and essayed to sit up, but with a gasp he sank back on his pillow. Eric clasped the thin, bony hand in his and held it till Warren drew it away. He nodded towards the door, and said: "Shut it, Vaughn; thar hain't no use lettin' any blabbin' woman hear what we got to say. She's a good wom an--the best I ever seed; but it's the nature of a female to love to tell things, an' this is jest yore busi ness an' mine. The doctor says I hain't agoin' to live long; but he don't know--they don't know ever'thing. I'll see dozens o' doctors buried 'fore I'm put under the sod yet, now mark my words."
"I hope so, Mr. Warren," said Eric. "No, you don't," Warren laughed; "you are just talkin' to say some'n' agreeable, beca'se I'm sorter sick. I never was that way. I always fire the dead, hard truth at anybody, high or low. We hain't been friends, so what's the use to put on? Abner Daniel told me, though, what you done fer me, an' I hain't goin' to be meally - mouthed an' sneakin' about it. I appreciate it--don't care a

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damn what yore reason was--you saved me from that awful death, an', as I say, I appreciate it."
"That wasn't anything, Mr. Warren," Eric re plied, "that was only--"
" Thar you go ag'in with yore fool baby-talk!" Warren broke in, petulantly. "What's the use to beat the devil around the bush till the old thing is dizzy in the head? You know it was some'n'. At any rate, it was what I wanted, above all things, an' was sech an uncommon thing fer one man to do fer another, even five years after the'r--the'r fallin' out, that it set me to studyin'. I don't know now, you see, sence you've showed that sort o' sperit, but what ef I'd 'a' let things rock on, away back thar, 'fore I tuck the gal off, that maybe you mought 'a' done the fair thing by 'er; but I was so all-fired mad an' fearin' the exposure, an' rememberin' the dirty way yore old daddy once treated a gal, an' believin' the like was in your blood, I seed it was shoot an' kill or leave the country. I decided not to bloody my hands. I happened to be sober at the time, an' Marie said she'd a heap ruther go away."
Eric stood straight; a desperately angry glare was in his eyes.
" Do you mean to say now, here, perhaps on your dying bed, Mr. Warren, that you still doubt your daughter's purity--now, five years after she was laid--"
"Look here!" the sick man suddenly broke in; "let's not have any more fine talk. You've done me a big, big favor. I don't dispute that. You gave me back my life when I stood facin' the most aw-

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ful death that ever overtook a body, an' I'm ready to say I overlook ever'thing. You wasn't more'n a boy, anyway. Yes, I overlook ever'thing; do you understand? This act towards me is all I could ax, so thar hain't no use in palaverin'."
Eric bent over him. He caught the thin hands and held them tight. It was as if he wanted to force his words into the very bones of the almost inanimate husk before him.
"By God, I tell you she was innocent, Warren! She was innocent! Our love was as pure as heaven. I told you the truth about that affair--the truth, as God is my Judge /"
Warren smiled incredulously. He made an effort to shake his shaggy head, but it lay like a block of stone.
"Puh!" he sniffed; "do you mean to try to ram a fool thing like that down the throat of a man as old an' experienced as I am? You stand thar an' tell me that two good-lookin', young, hot-blooded folks could be housed up together like you two 'was an' her without a sign of a--"
"Stop! Damn it, stop! Stop!" Eric thundered. "You are a dying man, but if you say more, I'll--"
Warren laughed softly. "Well, you certainly cap the stack," he said. "I've heard some'n' about you high-flyin' bloods facin' death rather 'an go back on a woman you've compromised, an' it's all right, I reckon; it's all right, lie or no lie; but that don't keep me from feelin' kindly towards you, even ef you worked so hard fer me beca'se you was sorry, an' beca'se you've been thinkin' all these years that maybe yore con-
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duct was the cause o' 'er death. Huh! I fixed that tale up, anyway, jest to devil you. Now listen to me: I sent fer you to-night to tell you, ef you are a-sufferin' in yore mind about the gal's death, that she's in better hands than she would 'a' been with me or you. Some rich folks down thar at the springs come to see 'er when she was sick. They moved 'er to a room in the hotel, an' give 'er good nursin' an' medical attention, an' done ever'thing on earth fer 'er. They believed her side o' the matter, both the old general an' his wife did, an' he come to me a time or two, with threats of the law an' what not. Finally I gave in an' they adopted 'er as the'r own child. She's alive and well, Vaughn--no harm ever come to 'er. On the contrary, from what I kin gather, she's riz away up in the world."
Eric sank on to the edge of the bed. A light had burst upon him. His heart stood still for an in stant, then every vein in his body seemed tingling, palpitating, bursting.
"Alive, did you say?" he gasped--"alive?" " Yes, an' well an' hearty, the last I heard of her. She used to write me ever' now an' then." War ren laughed again; softly. "She's as quar as you are about some things, ready to bend hell, heaven, an' earth to pull the wool over my eyes. Although they adopted 'er, an' give 'er ever'thing a gal could ask--education, clothes, travellin', an' fine livin'--she's writ several times that she was ready to come back to me ef I'd jest retract that one thing about her an' 'er ma. You see 'er mother an' a young, long-faced Methodist preacher--but that hain't neither here nor thar. Some say she
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left me beca'se I was drinkin' an' cuttin' up; but when a married woman--but she's dead, an' what's the good a-stirrin' that up? I reckon I was sorter lookin' fer the same trait to crap out in the child, an' so when you 'n' her--"
" Stop I" Eric cried; " stop! Don't go any farther! Great God! You say she's alive ?"
"Yes, she's alive. When I left 'er an' come back here, I reckon I was sorter 'shamed to let folks know I'd turned my offspring over to other folks, even ef she was weak an' led off, an' so I made up that tale. It went down here at home. Nobody doubted it. I got a letter from 'er the day I was ar rested for killing Buford. I was afeared she mought hear of my fix an' be tryin' to help, an' I didn't want none o' her means. So I writ back that I had all I needed (she was always offerin' to send me money), an' fer her not to write me no more. She seed I meant business, an' you bet I did. I reckon her rich friends must 'a' done a few things off color the'rse'ves when they was young, an' could sorter sympathize with 'er, seein' she was so young an' frail when she met with her mis hap."
Eric seemed scarcely to hear what the dying man was saying. Thousands of pictures from the past, his beautiful past, rapidly moved before his mind's eyes. He would find her; he would explain. Per haps she thought that--
He suddenly leaned over Warren, whose eyelids were slowly closing.
"The name of the people who adopted her?" he demanded. "Tell me their names."

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"What you say?" Warren opened his eyes like a drowsy opium-eater.
"Who adopted her, Warren? Who, I say?" " Le' me alone; I'm sleepy. I'll tell you in the mornin'. Go home now; drop in as you are pass ing an' I'll--" His eyes were closing again. Eric took his hand and felt the pulse. It was faint, al most gone; the wrist was cold and clammy. Eric shook him firmly. "No, now!" he urged--"now! Tell me!" " Oh," Warren snapped, angrily, " Winston--Gen eral Winston, New Orleans, an' his wife. They--" He was gone again. "Winston--General Winston!" Eric saw it all clearly. He rose and went into the other room and stood by the fire. He heard Daniel's horse neighing in his uncomfortable quarters. The rain, falling harder, beat on the shutters of the paneless windows. The wind whistled dolefully under the eaves of the house and beneath the floor, but the young man's heart was on fire. "Alive! great God, alive!" he kept whispering to himself. "Marie, my Marie, is alive!" She was the woman Blathwait was writing about so mysterious ly. A chill as of death suddenly came over him. After all, what right had he to hope that she could care for him, when her last message to him had been a bitter rejection of his suit? Perhaps in those long years of separation she had grown actually to hate him. Yes, he saw it all now. Her father had shocked her budding love to death. He had bru tally shaken it out of her warm young soul. Then a startling picture flashed before him. He saw the
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broad sweep of blue sky and endless mountainchains from the hotel at Asheville--the beautiful, stately, modish girl as she stood on the veranda looking towards the west. It was she; he had seen her in reality. The lady and gentleman in whose charge she was were the Wins tons.
There was a clattering sound on the porch. It was Mrs. Dilworthy stamping the mud from her shoes. She came in, enveloped from head to foot in an old, gray, water-soaked blanket. " How is he?" she questioned.
"Asleep," he told her. She threw down her wrap and went softly into Warren's room. She was gone only a moment. She came back, a calm look of resignation in her eyes. "Asleep, huh!" she said. "He's dead." Together they went to Warren and stood over his body. "Death is a quar thing," the woman mused, phil osophically. " It Tarns us mighty nigh as much as life, ef we watch it close. Did you ever see a happier smile on a human face 'n that? Si Warren's seein' things straight at last, I reckon. Maybe he's meetin' his wife an' dau--" Mrs. Dilworthy paused suddenly and laid her damp, red hand on Eric's arm. " Did he talk to you before he died? I've al ways thought maybe thar was a bare chance--" Vaughn leaned forward till his face was close to hers. " He told me she's alive, Mrs. Dilworthy. Marie's alive!" " Thank God!" the woman said; " an'--an' is she-- well?"

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"She was when he heard last, Mrs. Dilworthy," Eric said, and he went out of the room into the other and stood before the fire. The woman followed him.
"Is she--" she paused. Then catching his firm glance she finished in a low voice: "Has she ever --married?"
He told her all he knew, not omitting his secret fears, as she sat drying her rough, gaping shoes at the fire, and he stood over her. When he had fin ished, she sat staring before her, thoughtfully shak ing her old, gray head.
" Yes, as you say, Mr. Eric," she counselled, " you'd as well try to prepare fer disapp'intment; she may be engaged to somebody, or changed. I wouldn't advise you to count on any woman under sech odd circumstances. If I was you I'd try to make up my mind to give 'er up--that is, ef--"
"I can never give her up," he said. "I can't! Even when I thought she was dead, I -- but you know how I felt."
The old woman gave him one steady look, and then she covered her face with her apron. " I was jest a-thinkin'," she said, in muffled tones--" I was jest a-thinkin' that when I was a young gal--at the courtin' age--I imagined the man I afterwards mar ried was goin' to love me that away--that away always--an' when he didn't, I 'lowed thar was no sech thing as constancy in the hearts an' souls o' men, an' now I see it bloomin' like a flower fer--fer another woman. I want to see Marie ag'in. I want to git one good look at a woman that's been loved that away. I'd ruther see 'er--I'd ruther be her-- than a queen. I reckon you'll write 'er," she nodded
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towards the death - chamber, "about her daddy'sdeath."
" I want you to do that, Mrs. Dilworthy." "I'm a mighty pore hand at writin'," the old woman answered; "but ef you say the word, I'll do what I kin. Would you wait till after--" she nodded again towards Warren's room. " Yes, under the circumstances--their long separa tion, and her adoption--it would be better to wait, at least, till after the burial." The old woman stood up, listening to the beating storm. "It's a awful night," she said. "But we'll have to send fer some o' the men in the neighborhood. It's the custom. He'll have to be dressed fer the coffin. I was lookin' fer this, an' I fixed his graveclothes yesterday. I reckon Dan Sprigs an' the Holcolm men are as nigh as any, an'--" "The weather is too bad," Eric said. " I'll do it, Mrs. Dilworthy." " You f" she exclaimed, but observing his face, she did not oppose him. She turned her eyes back to the fire. "Yes, I'd like to see Marie Warren," he heard her saying to herself. " She don't know what she's had all this time."

XXXVI

!IT was five days later in the drawing-

j room of General Winston's big house

| in New Orleans. The general and

' Eric Vaughn "were together.

__

___ " I am glad you sent your card in to

me first," the old white-haired man was saying, as

he pulled at his Vandyke beard, with a fat, pink

hand, on the little finger of which was a big seal ring.

" As I say, Mr. Vaughn, the situation is a most deli

cate one for me to handle, and yet I promise you I'll

try to be just."

"I knew you would be so, General Winston,"

Eric replied. " I thought that I would wait longer,

after the unpleasant news of her father's death

reached her, but I simply could not."

"I understand--I understand," the old man said,

stroking his wrinkled brow with the tips of his fin

gers. " It was most natural for you to come. I see

that, since you have explained the situation. But

Mrs. Winston and I both think it would be unwise

for you to expect an interview with Marie just now,

at least. You see, the letter from that Mrs.--"

The name had slipped the old man's memory.

"Mrs. Dilworthy," interpolated Eric.

"Yes, Mrs. Dilworthy," went on the general, with

a nod of appreciation; " her letter was badly directed,

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and it was delayed on the way, and so the news only reached Marie last night. It had a very bad effect on the poor child. We could not make out all the contents, but it seems that Warren was arrested for murder, and tried, and though he afterwards estab lished his innocence, there was an intimation in the letter that he was imprisoned, and had suffered a good deal. Marie is a most sensitive and almost morbidly conscientious creature, and she is now bit terly reproaching herself for leaving him. Nothing we can say seems to relieve her. She hardly slept last night, and had a touch of fever. I sat up with her,' and she could talk of nothing else. She loves my wife and myself as if we were her real parents, and we adore her; but her duty to him has preyed on her mind ever since she agreed to our adopting her. She has saved up her pin-money and was al ways writing and offering to aid him, but he scorned her continually. You, of course, know how unjust ly he suspected her; she felt that it was her duty to womanhood to remain no longer with him, under such a cloud, and that is the only reason--that and the fact that he had just as unfairly judged her moth er--that induced her to finally yield to our urgent entreaties. She has become, as you may have heard, a wonderful woman, the marvel of all the people she has met. She could have married well dozens of times, but she seemed to have had no particular affection for anybody, aside from us, though I con fess that I have had a sort of hope that she might eventually care for a certain young man with whom she has been thrown a good deal in the last month here in New Orleans. He is a gentleman that both
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Mrs. Winston and. I admire very much. Really. Mr. Vaughn, you see--"
The general hesitated, twirling his watch-fob with his fingers.
Eric, looking steadily at him, put in: "May I ask if you refer to Carlton Blathwait?" The old soldier raised his brows in surprise. " You know of him, then?" " Yes; we are, in fact, personal friends. I received a letter from him recently, in which he mentioned his acquaintance with you and M--Miss Winston. So you think that they--" "Oh no," the general replied, quickly, as if slightly put out. "There is really nothing between the two aside from friendship and mutual admira tion." "Then why did you mention Blathwait's name?" Eric asked, in mild surprise. The old man rose and went to the window look ing out upon the quiet street. He stood there for a moment, then he turned back, a look of firmer reso lution on his fine old face. " I feel that I am not dealing with you quite openly, as man to man," he admitted. "You see, your frank confidence disarmed me--threw me off my guard. I don't think I am worldly minded, but my daughter's future happiness and well-being are constantly on my mind, and I confess to you that, knowing what a good husband Blathwait would make, and how well he is able to gratify her every wish, I have hoped that their present friendship might eventually ripen into something deeper. So you see how hard it is for me suddenly to throw
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myself into your cause, especially as I do not know you, and--and--"
" I appreciate your position thoroughly, General Winston," said Eric. "I only thought if I could, with your consent, see her again, that I might ex plain away some things which she does not under stand."
Again the troubled look descended upon the old man's brow. He strode back and forth across the Persian rug for a moment, his hands tightly clasped behind him. Suddenly he turned and paused at Eric's side.
" I scarcely know how to talk to you," he said, " it is so hard to hurt the feelings of the young. But I must be frank, Mr. Vaughn; there is no use in beat ing about the bush. The whole truth is, that I can not conscientiously give my consent to your seeing my daughter again."
"Ah, I see!" A shaft had entered Eric Vaughn's heart. He sat staring at the carpet for a moment. "I see; you think I am unworthy of--of even the chance to set myself straight in--in her estimation."
"I'm sorry to hurt you," the general replied, feelingly, "but I can see no other way out of this than to speak plainly. I'm now responsible for Marie's happiness. She may or may not have loved you when she was a girl, and when that awful thing happened, but my opinion is that she no longer feels as she did then towards you, and I cannot believe that it would be wise for me to allow you to open the old wound. -This may sound brutal, but we must be plain. Mr. Vaughn, you happen not to be exactly the kind of man that I would introduce to my daugh-
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ter as a possible suitor. Your reputation as a reck less man of dissipated habits, a spendthrift and a bankrupt, extends all over the Sou.th. With Marie's interest at heart, I cannot consent to your seeing her again. She was once in your care--an inexperienced child--and you allowed things to happen that have almost wrecked her whole life. I must beg you to go away, and--"
Eric sprang up. He was "white to the lips with fury and despair.
" I'm not to see her?" he cried, his face close to the old man's. " Do you expect me, sir, to remain si lent and allow her to think that any man--any man alive--could so damnably treat a helpless woman ? I tell you I will see her! I will tell her the truth--if not here, under your roof, somewhere else. She is entitled to have that mistake corrected, no matter how black my character has been. I do not ask for her regard or confidence in me. I simply want her to have what is due her womanhood--the knowledge that I could not possibly have acted as I have all these years, knowing that she was alive. Now, sir, you have my side of the matter."
The general stared, a glance of reluctant admira tion lighted up his mild old eyes. There was a pause. "You are the right sort of metal," he said, present ly. " I don't like to stir this thing up, but, at any rate, I'll tell her you are here and ask her if she will see you. Wait and I'll go to her."
He glided from the room, a strange agitation on him. Eric saw him pass into the big hall, and up the carpeted stairs. The moments seemed hours longdrawn out as he sat waiting, an awful fear clutching
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his heart. That she could never love him again was plain to him now, viewing the whole matter through his dark glasses and under the lash of the truth the general had spoken. All the desperate deeds of his wild chase after forgetfulness loomed up before him. How easy it would be for a woman to hate the man who had so foolishly compromised her and darkened her whole life! And love once dead, could anything revive it? Suddenly he heard the general coming. The old man was walking down the steps as if to the chamber of the dead. At the bottom he paused for an instant, and then turned into the room.
"I told her," he said, his lips twitching. "She was lying down, trying to read that old woman's letter again. I told her you were here and wished to see her. She turned pale. I thought she was about to faint. Then her color came back, and she sat up and said, calmly, that she would prefer not to see you."
There was silence. Eric's eyes were fixed almost in the stare of death on the face of the speaker.
" You told her of my mistake--that I thought she was dead?" he gasped.
"Yes, I told her that, Mr. Vaughn." "And what did she say to--to that?" "She simply didn't believe it." " She--did--not--believe--it ?''
" No, she did not believe it!" "She would, if I could see her." "I don't know as to that, Mr. Vaughn;" the gen eral had suddenly taken on a chivalric dignity he had not worn during the interview. "At any rate,
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there is only one course open to me. My daughter

has expressed a desire not to see you. Neither you

nor I, being wish."

gentlemen,

can

think

of

opposing

her

"So that ends it!" The words came out with a groan.
" That ends it," said the general. " I was anxious to do my full duty to you; my first, however, is to a stricken woman. If you are to be in town several days, I'd be glad to extend the hospitality of my club."
" I thank you, General Winston," Eric said, draw ing himself erect; "but I start back to Georgia to night."
Their eyes met; the right hand of the old man was raised, and it rested on Eric's arm. "You are a man," he said--" a soldier! I feel honored to have met you. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, General Winston."
A man-servant in the hall handed Eric his hat and coat. He put them on mechanically, and went out. The heavy door with its old-fashioned brass knocker rattled as it closed after him. A damp wind, driv ing down the street, struck him in the face.
" It's all over," he muttered. " My God! how can I give her up! Oh, Lord, give me manhood; give me strength!"
He bit his lip till he tasted the blood, and with his head down he struggled onward.

XXXVII
IE following Thursday afternoon Abner Daniel found Eric Vaughn at the | boundary - line which separated the I) young man's property from that of __ ^ another owner. He was giving direc tions to half a dozen workmen who were tearing down a ramshackle rail fence, burning the rails and underbrush, which was being cleared away, in great heaps, and substituting a fence of modern barbed wire. There was a great deal of smoke, which, ow ing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, did not rise high; a blue wisp of it was creeping like a head less monster along the nearest mountain-side. Eric left his work as Abner approached, and stood wait ing for the old man to speak. "I want you to come a little piece with me," Abner said, mysteriously. "I've got some'n' to
show you." "All right," said Eric, and, turning the supervision
of the work over to an overseer, he followed Abner into the wood near by. Eric's face was pale and care-worn, and he looked as if he had lost consider
able sleep. "What's up now?" he asked, as he suited his step
to Abner's and they were under the trees, walking on the dying grass and fallen leaves.
"Never you mind, young man, you come on!" 329

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In silence they walked for about half a mile. They were near the little meeting-house, when Abner sud denly paused. " In a minute," he said, " I'm goin' to show you the purtiest sight you ever seed, an' I want you to be ready fer it."
"What do you mean, Uncle Abner?" "Eric, now don't jump out o' yore skin; she's come to visit her daddy's grave." " Marie f" The word was a reverent whisper. "Yes, the hack she was in stopped at the store; the driver had to git out to buy some'n' or other. I was thar, an' as soon as I ketched sight of 'er face an' heard who she was, I knowed she wouldn't re sent it, so I went an' introduced myself. Oh, she was nice! She mighty nigh cried as she was talkin'. I told 'er whar the grave was, an' she's thar by this time. Come a little furder an' you kin see 'er. She's the purtiest, gentlest creature God ever made." They walked on. Reaching the top of a little rise, and sheltered from Marie's view, the two men look ed out. The graveyard in the rear of the meeting house was only about a hundred yards away, across an old field, and coming round the corner all alone they saw Marie Warren. Eric made no sound. Ab ner was not regarding him. The eyes of both were on the tall, graceful figure moving about among the tombstones. She seemed in doubt as to the loca tion of the spot for which she was searching, for she walked aimlessly, going first in one direction, then in another. "She don't know whar it is," Abner said. "I told 'er the best I could. Eric, you go show her." Eric's, face was quite pale; his lip quivered as he
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spoke. Not for an instant had he lifted his hungry eyes from the girl. "I'd rather not," he faltered; "it wouldn't be treating her fairly -- after -- you know--''
"That's so, maybe yo're right, bein' as she's a delicate woman, an' at sech a time an' place; but thar hain't nothin' to hender me. I'll go, Eric. You stay here."
He had moved several paces away when he turn ed back. "Ef I happen to need you fer anything, I'll wave my handkerchief."
"Be careful what you say," Eric cautioned him, "be--"
"I'll attend to that," Abner said. "You watch my handkerchief, an' ef I need you, I'll shake it up an' down."
Abner strode steadily across the old field, and entered the church-yard gate. He was close upon Marie before she saw him. He had already doffed his hat, and he bowed as he caught her eye.
"You seem to 'a' lost yore bearin's," he said, "so I 'lowed I'd better come show you."
"Yes," she said, with a grateful look, "I'm all turned around. It's very kind of you, Mr. Daniel."
"Not at all," he said. "Yore pa's grave's over here." He led her to a mound in one corner of the church-yard, and, hat in hand, he stood reverently near as she looked down at the freshly turned sod. There were no tears in her eyes, her regular features were calm, her glance steady.
Suddenly she looked straight at Abner. " Some how," she said, " you make me feel as if I had known you a long time. You seem to belong to my old

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home here in the mountains. Mr. Daniel, I felt that I had to come. My friends in New Orleans tried to dissuade me; but I could not see it as they did. This was my father. I was not happy with him, and he was not always kind to me and my poor mother; but he was my father, and since I have heard of his great trouble, his confinement in jail, and his long illness, I'm afraid I shall always reproach my self for not remaining with him. Oh, I ought to have forgiven him and stayed with him! Poor, poor old man; he couldn't help being as he was."
Abner was deeply moved by her distress and won derful beauty.
"You ort not to feel that away, Miss--Miss--" "Marie," she put in; "call me that, Mr. Daniel. I have never felt that I had the right to any other name than he--"--she looked at the grave--"than he gave me. Yes, many men make mistakes--he made them; but he was my father, and I wish now that I could have been by him through it all. Just think of it--"--tears were now in her great, deep eyes--"he went through all that persecution with out a single friend, while I--I--his daughter--was far away, in ease and luxury!" "Yes, he had a friend, Miss Marie, he had one!" Abner blurted out, and into his set face appeared the forerunner of a deliberate purpose to be executed at any cost. " You mean Mr. Hammond, the lawyer," she said. "Yes, that was noble--noble of him. But he shall be paid; he shall not lose his fee through my father. General Winston will help me see to that." " He was paid in full, Miss Marie," Abner went on,
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firmly, "and, all told, thousands o' dollars went from one man's pocket to pay detectives an' other expenses. Yes, one man mighty nigh bankrupt ed hisse'f to free Si Warren. That one man, too, stepped into a lynchin' gang two hundred strong an' saved Si Warren's life at the very outset. That one man was so situated that he couldn't let any body know what he was raisin' so much money fer, so he mortgaged his land on the sly to save Si War ren. That one man's father got wind o' the mort gage, an' threatened to disinherit him, but he didn't care a hill o' beans. He went on. He gained his p'int. He give Si Warren every comfort, stood behind 'im when every mouth, mighty nigh, was open agin 'im, an' lived to see Warren die a respectable death. He was with 'im to the last minute, an' was the only man thar that stormy night to arrange the body fer burial. That man did all that beca'se he loved Si Warren's daughter, Miss Marie, with a love, as the Lord is my Judge, that never was beat in the history o' man!"
Marie was as white as death. She leaned forward and rested both her gloved hands on the speaker's arm.
"Can you mean that--" '' Yes; I mean that Eric Vaughn did all that fer the memory o' the girl he thought was dead, an' loved as tender in death as in life." " He thought I was dead?--really, Eric thought--" "Yes; Si Warren come back an' told everybody you was dead, Miss Marie. He was ashamed, maybe, to let folks know he'd give his child up to other folks; but he told that, an' Eric Vaughn believed it, an'
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was so broke up over it that he tried to drown his despair in fast livin'. But through it all his love never died. A few men are that away. I never loved but once, at his age, an' I've never wanted an other sence she died. Her grave's right over thar, Miss Marie, to the left. She loved roses; it's kivered with bushes of 'em that bloom every month in sea son. Men hain't so heartless, when you know 'em right. Eric Vaughn's a man o' the right stamp. Ef I was a woman I'd ruther have a love like his'n than to dwell in a palace with a king."
Marie had covered her face with her handkerchief, perhaps to keep the old man from reading the stormy light in her wonderful eyes.
"I must see Eric--to--to thank him," she said. "Where is he?"
" He's thar in the edge o' them woods. Oh, Eric!" the old man called out; "you come here a minute."
Abner heard Marie utter a little startled scream at his abrupt disclosure, and then they both saw Eric emerge from the woods and stride rapidly towards them. Abner turned aside. He went towards the clump of rose-bushes on the left.
As Eric came forward, Marie advanced to meet him with outstretched hands.
She was first to speak. " Mr. Daniel has been telling me--oh, Eric, he says you've been thinking all this time that I was dead!"
"Till your father told me otherwise just before he died," Eric answered. "I was astounded and over joyed at the news."
He did not release her hands; he felt her little fin-
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gers unconsciously and timidly clutching his; the life blood was bounding in his veins.
"Mr. Daniel has told me, too, of all that you did for my poor father. Oh, Eric! how--why did you--"
He hesitated for an instant, then he looked her fairly in the face.
" Because I loved you," he said. " I have always loved you, Marie. What I did simply seemed what I ought to do. I couldn't have helped it. Through it all he seemed to be my own father."
"And--and I sent you away. I insulted you un der my own roof the other day," she faltered. " After you had gone that worried me; but the general's announcement was so sudden. Just think of it! I have been angry at you for five years. All that time I was secretly resenting your staying away and not standing by me under my father's awful charge. All the reports which came to me of your way of living were like constant blows in the face. Oh, Eric, I thought you no longer respected me! I thought you were judging me by my thoughtless conduct that day at your house, when I was too young and ignorant to know how it looked. Oh, you don't know--you could never understand, being a man, how that would sting a woman's pride."
"I think I do understand--now," he said, his eyes on fire.
"Then you did not lose respect for me, Eric? not a day--not--"
"Not one instant," he replied. Suddenly her young face grew serious; she avoid ed his eyes, looking across the graves to where Abner Daniel was standing.
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" Mr. Daniel says you were with my father at the very last, Eric. I am almost afraid to ask you; but it seems to me that God could not be so unjust as to--to let him die believing--still believing as he did. You must tell me, though, Eric--you will tell me the truth."
Only for an instant did Eric Vaughn hesitate. The scene flashed over his memory of the time when he had lied to Si Warren in an effort to protect her from his wrath. Had good or evil come from it? He could not tell. Now, as then, he was thinking only of her--of her happiness.
"Don't let that ever again disturb you," he said, recalling the smile on Warren's dead face, and Mrs. Dilworthy's remark that he, perhaps, "was seeing things straight" at last. "Yes, Marie, I had a talk with him before he died--in fact, he sent for me. At the end he did you full justice--he did you full justice, Marie."
"Oh, I'm so glad of that!" the girl said, almost with a sob. " But you have not said you forgive me, Eric. You have a right to be angry at me for such blind ingratitude."
"There is nothing to forgive," he answered. "As for your treatment at your home in New Orleans, I really had no right to go there. Marie, the gen eral told me that he hoped you and Carlton Blathwait might in time learn to care for each other. I can't find it in my heart, even now, to run him down. He is a noble fellow; he's been a true friend to me; he is everything a strong man ought to be."
"Yes, he is all you say," the girl answered, "but I could never--"
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She paused. "Never what, Marie? Go on--do go on!" For an instant her words hung in her throat. A flush crept from her neck to her pretty chin, and spread itself over her face. " Oh, Marie, little girl, is there any hope for me?" Eric pleaded. She looked straight into his eyes. "Eric," she said, " I have been fighting the love of my girlhood all these years, and never for an instant have I con quered it. I love you. I love you to-day more than ever. I feel as if I never wanted to leave you again, even for a moment. I have seen nearly all the world, and many things, and many people, but I want only these quiet old mountains again, and you--you, Eric." "Thank God!" Eric exclaimed, and then, unable to say more, he simply stood feasting his eyes upon her.
Abner had gone to the grave among the rose-bush es. He stood looking at the well-kept mound and the weather-stained headstone for several minutes, then he peered out at the couple. He saw them looking towards him as they stood, each holding the other's hand. They were signalling to him. He saw the smiles and the glow on their faces, and un derstood. He answered back with a silent waving of his old hat; then he looked down at the grave.
" Ef you'd jest 'a' lived," he said, huskily, " you 'n' me 'ud 'a' been like them two."
He walked round to the headstone, his eyes full; a sob was shaking his breast. Suddenly he lowered
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his wrinkled brow to the stone; a lock of his gray hair fell over it caressingly.
"Oh, God Almighty," he prayed: " ef you do give mortals a life after this un, grant me the pressure of her soft hand ag'in; let me hear her laugh, an' see her eyes shine once more. Grant me this, O Lord, or jest gi' me sleep--eternal sleep!"