"It's the pussy fellow!" cried a voice.

"Oh, shut up—don't you think I know him?" retorted the sheriff tartly.

"Gentlemen—" began the judge blandly.

"Get the well-rope!"

The judge was rather at loss properly to interpret these varied remarks. He was not long left in doubt. The sheriff stepped to his side and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Slocum Price, or whatever your name is, your little game is up!"

"Get the well-rope! Oh, hell—won't some one get the well-rope?" The voice rose into a wail of entreaty.

The judge's eyes, rather startled, slid around in their sockets. Clearly something was wrong—but what—what?

"Ain't he bold?" it was a woman's voice this time, and the fat landlady, her curls awry and her plump breast heaving tumultuously, gained a place in the forefront of the crowd.

"Dear madam, this is an unexpected pleasure!" said the judge, with his hand upon his heart.

"Don't you make your wicked old sheep's eyes at me, you brazen thing!" cried the lady.

"You're wanted," said the sheriff grimly, still keeping his hand on the judge's shoulder.

"For what?" demanded the judge thickly. The sheriff had no time in which to answer.

"I want my money!" shrieked the landlady.

"Your money—Mrs. Walker, you amaze me!" The judge drew himself up haughtily, in genuine astonishment.

"I want my money!" repeated Mrs. Walker in even more piercing tones.

"I am not aware that I owe you anything, madam. Thank God, I hold your receipted bill of recent date," answered the judge with chilling dignity.

"Good money—not this worthless trash!" she shook a bill under his nose. The judge recognized it as the one of which he had despoiled Hannibal.

"You have been catched passing counterfeit," said the sheriff. A light broke on the judge, a light that dazzled and stunned. An officious and impatient gentleman tossed a looped end of the well-rope about his neck and the crowd yelled excitedly. This was something like—it had a taste for the man-hunt! The sheriff snatched away the rope and dealt the officious gentleman a savage blow on the chin that sent him staggering backward into the arms of his friends.

"Now, see here, now—I'm going to arrest this old faller! I am going to put him in jail, and I ain't going to have no nonsense—do you hear me?" he expostulated.

"I can explain—" cried the judge.

"Make him give me my money!" wailed Mrs Walker.

"Jezebel!" roared the judge, in a passion of rage.

"Ca'm's the word, or you'll get 'em started!" whispered the sheriff. The judge looked fearfully around. At his side stood Mahaffy, a yellow pallor splotching his thin cheeks. He seemed to be holding himself there by an effort.

"Speak to them, Solomon—speak to them—you know how I came by the money! Speak to them—you know I am innocent!" cried the judge, clutching his friend by the arm. Mahaffy opened his thin lips, but the crowd drowned his voice in a roar.

"He's his partner—"

"There's no evidence against him," said the sheriff.

A tall fellow, in a fringed hunting-shirt, shook a long finger under Mahaffy's aquiline nose.

"You scoot—that's what—you make tracks! And if we ever see your ugly face about here again, we'll—"

"You'll what?" inquired Mahaffy.

"We'll fix you out with feathers that won't molt, that's what!"

Mr. Mahaffy seemed to hesitate. His lean hands opened and closed, and he met the eyes of the crowd with a bitter, venomous stare. Some one gave him a shove and he staggered forward a step, snapping out a curse. Before he could recover himself the shove was repeated.

"Lope on out of here!" yelled the tall fellow, who had first challenged his right to remain in Pleasantville or its environs. As the crowd fell apart to make way for him, willing hands were extended to give him the needed impetus, and without special volition of his own.

Mahaffy was hurried toward the road. His hat was knocked flat on his head—he turned with an angry snarl, the very embodiment of hate—but again he was thrust forward. And then, somehow, his walk became a run and the crowd started after him with delighted whoopings. Once more, and for the last time, he faced about, giving the judge a hopeless, despairing glance. His tormentors were snatching up sods and stones and he had no choice. He turned, his long strides taking him swiftly over the ground, with the air full of missiles at his back.

Before he had gone a hundred yards he abandoned the road and, turning off across an unfenced field, ran toward the woods and swampy bottom. Twenty men were in chase behind him. The judge was the sheriff's prisoner—that official had settled that point—but Mr. Mahaffy was common property, it was his cruel privilege to furnish excitement; his keen rage was almost equal to the fear that urged him on. Then the woods closed about him. His long legs, working tirelessly, carried him over fallen logs and through tall tangled thickets, the voices behind him growing more and more distant as he ran.



CHAPTER XII. THE FAMILY ON THE RAFT

That would unquestionably have been the end of Bob Yancy when he was shot out into the muddy waters of the Elk River, had not Mr. Richard Keppel Cavendish, variously known as Long-Legged Dick, and Chills-and-Fever Cavendish, of Lincoln County, in the state of Tennessee, some months previously and after unprecedented mental effort on his part, decided that Lincoln County was no place for him. When he had established this idea firmly in his own mind and in the mind of Polly, his wife, he set about solving the problem of transportation.

Mr. Cavendish's paternal grandparent had drifted down the Holston and Tennessee; and Mr. Cavendish's father, in his son's youth, had poled up the Elk. Mr. Cavendish now determined to float down the Elk to its juncture with the Tennessee, down the Tennessee to the Ohio, and if need be, down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and keep drifting until he found some spot exactly suited to his taste. Temperamentally, he was well adapted to drifting. No conception of vicarious activity could have been more congenial.

With this end in view he had toiled through late winter and early spring, building himself a raft on which to transport his few belongings and his numerous family; there were six little Cavendishes, and they ranged in years from four to eleven; there was in addition the baby, who was always enumerated separately. This particular infant Mr. Cavendish said he wouldn't take a million dollars for. He usually added feelingly that he wouldn't give a piece of chalk for another one.

June found him aboard his raft with all his earthly possessions bestowed about him, awaiting the rains and freshets that were to waft him effortless into a newer country where he should have a white man's chance. At last the rains came, and he cast off from the bank at that unsalubrious spot where his father had elected to build his cabin on a strip of level bottom subject to periodic inundation. Wishing fully to profit by the floods and reach the big water without delay, Cavendish ran the raft twenty-four hours at a stretch, sleeping by day while Polly managed the great sweep, only calling him when some dangerous bit of the river was to be navigated. Thus it happened that as Murrell and Slosson were dragging Yancy down the lane, Cavendish was just rounding a bend in the Elk, a quarter of a mile distant. Leaning loosely against the long handle of his sweep, he was watching the lane of bright water that ran between the black shadows cast by the trees on either bank. He was in shirt and trousers, barefoot and bareheaded, and his face, mild and contemplative, wore an expression of dreamy contentment.

Suddenly its expression changed. He became alert and watchful. He had heard a dull splash. Thinking that some tree had been swept into the flood, he sought to pierce the darkness that lay along the shore. Five or six minutes passed as the raft glided along without sound. He was about to relapse into his former attitude of listless ease when he caught sight of some object in the eddy that swept alongside. Mr. Cavendish promptly detached himself from the handle of the sweep and ran to the edge of the raft.

"Good Lord—what's that!" he gasped, but he already knew it was a face, livid and blood-streaked. Dropping on his knees he reached out a pair of long arms and made a dexterous grab, and his fingers closed on the collar of Yancy's shirt. "Neighbor, I certainly have got you!" said Cavendish, between his teeth. He drew Yancy close alongside the raft, and, slipping a hand under each arm, pulled him clear of the water. The swift current swept the raft on down the stream. It rode fairly in the center of the lane of light, but no eye had observed its passing. Mr. Cavendish stood erect and stared down at the blood-stained face, then he dropped on his knees again and began a hurried examination of the still figure. "There's a little life here—not much, but some—you was well worth fishing up!" he said approvingly, after a brief interval. "Polly!" he called, raising his voice.

This brought Mrs. Cavendish from one of the two cabins that occupied the center of the raft. She was a young woman, still very comely, though of a matronly plumpness. She was in her nightgown, and when she caught sight of Yancy she uttered a shriek and fled back into the shanty.

"I declare, Dick, you might ha' told a body you wa'n't alone!" she said reproachfully.

Her cry had aroused the other denizens of the raft. The tow heads of the six little Cavendishes rose promptly from a long bolster in the smaller of the two shanties, and as promptly six little Cavendishes, each draped in a single non-committal garment, apparently cut by one pattern and not at all according to the wearer's years or length of limb, tumbled forth from their shelter.

"Sho', Polly, he's senseless! But you dress and come here quick. Now, you young folks, don't you tetch him!" for the six small Cavendishes, excited beyond measure, were crowding and shoving for a nearer sight of Yancy. They began to pelt their father with questions. Who was it? Sho', in the river? Sho', all cut up like that—who'd cut him? Had he hurt himself? Was he throwed in? When did pop fish him out? Was he dead? Why did he lay like that and not move or speak—sho'! This and much more was flung at Mr. Cavendish all in one breath, and each eager questioner seized him by the hand, the dangling sleeve of his shirt, or his trousers—they clutched him from all sides. "I never seen such a family!" said Mr. Cavendish helplessly. "Now, you-all shut up, or I 'low I'll lay into you!"

Mrs. Cavendish's appearance created a diversion in his favor. The six rushed on her tumultously. They seized her hands or struggled for a fragment of her skirt to hold while they poured out their tale. Pop had fished up a man—he'd been throwed in the river! Pop didn't know if he was dead or not—he was all cut and bloody.

"I declare, I've a mind to skin you if you don't keep still! Miss Constance," Polly addressed her eldest child, "I'm surprised at you! You might be a heathen savage for all you got on your back—get into some duds this instant!" Cavendish was on his knees again beside Yancy, and Polly, by a determined effort, rid herself of the children. "Why, he's a grand-looking man, ain't he?" she cried. "La, what a pity!"

"You can feel his heart beat, and he's bleeding some," said Cavendish.

"Let me see—just barely flutters, don't it? Henry, go mind the sweep and see we don't get aground! Keppel, you start a fire and warm some water! Connie, you tear up my other petticoat for bandages now, stir around, all of you!" And then began a period of breathless activity. They first lifted Yancy into the circle of illumination cast by the fire Keppel had started on the hearth of flat stones before the shanties. Then, with Constance to hold a pan of warm water, Mrs. Cavendish deftly bathed the gaping wound in Yancy's shoulder where Murrell had driven his knife. This she bandaged with strips torn from her petticoat. Next she began on the ragged cut left by Slosson's club.

"He's got a right to be dead!" said Cavendish.

"Get the shears, Dick—I must snip away some of his hair."

All this while the four half-naked youngest Cavendishes, very still now, stood about the stone hearth in the chill dawn and watched their mother's surgery with a breathless interest. Only the outcast Henry at the sweep ever and anon lifted his voice between sobs of mingled rage and disappointment, and demanded what was doing.

"Think he is going to die, Polly?" whispered Cavendish at length. Their heads, hers very black and glossy, his very blond, were close together as they bent above the injured man.

"I never say a body's going to die until he's dead," said Polly. "He's still breathing, and a Christian has got to do what they can. Don't you think you ought to tie up?"

"The freshet's leaving us. I'll run until we hit the big water down by Pleasantville, and then tie up," said Cavendish.

"I reckon we'd better lift him on to one of the beds—get his wet clothes off and wrap him up warm," said Polly.

"Oh, put him in our bed!" cried all the little Cavendishes.

And Yancy was borne into the smaller of the two shanties, where presently his bandaged head rested on the long communal pillow. Then his wet clothes were hung up to dry along with a portion of the family wash which fluttered on a rope stretched between the two shanties.

The raft had all the appearance of a cabin dooryard. There was, in addition to the two shelters of bark built over a light framework of poles, a pen which housed a highly domestic family of pigs, while half a dozen chickens enjoyed a restricted liberty. With Yancy disposed of, the regular family life was resumed. It was sun-up now. The little Cavendishes, reluctant but overpersuaded, had their faces washed alongside and were dressed by Connie, while Mrs. Cavendish performed the same offices for the baby. Then there was breakfast, from which Mr. Cavendish rose yawning to go to bed, where, before dropping off to sleep, he played with the baby. This left Mrs. Cavendish in full command of her floating dooryard. She smoked a reflective pipe, watching the river between puffs, and occasionally lending a hand at the sweeps. Later the family wash engaged her. It had neither beginning nor end, but serialized itself from day to day. Connie was already proficient at the tubs. It was a knack she was in no danger of losing.

Keppel and Henry took turns at the sweeps, while the three smaller children began to manifest a love for the water they had not seemed to possess earlier in the day. They played along the edge of the raft, always in imminent danger of falling in, always being called back, or seized, just in time to prevent a catastrophe. This ceaseless activity on their part earned them much in the way of cuffings, chastisements which Mrs. Cavendish administered with no great spirit.

"Drat you, why don't you go look at the pore gentleman instead of posterin' a body 'most to death!" she demanded at length, and they stole off on tiptoe to stare at Yancy. Presently Richard ran to his mother's side.

"Come quick—he's mutterin' and mumblin' and moving his head!" he cried. It was as the child said. Yancy had roused from his heavy stupor. Words almost inaudible and quite inarticulate were issuing from his lips and there was a restless movement of his head on the pillow.

"He 'pears powerful distressed about something," said Mrs. Cavendish. "I reckon I'd better give him a little stimulant now."

While she was gone for the whisky, Connie, who had squatted down beside the bed, touched Yancy's hand which lay open. Instantly his fingers closed about hers and he was silent; the movement of his head ceased abruptly; but when she sought to withdraw her hand he began to murmur again.

"I declare, what he wants is some one to sit beside him!" said Mrs. Cavendish, who had returned with the whisky, a few drops of which she managed to force between Yancy's lips. All the rest of that day some one of the children sat beside the wounded man, who was quiet and satisfied just as long as there was a small hand for him to hold.

"He must be a family man," observed Mr. Cavendish when Polly told him of this. "We'll tie up at Pleasantville landing and learn who he is."

"He had ought to have a doctor to look at them cuts of his," said Mrs. Cavendish.

It was late afternoon when the landing was reached. Half a score of men were loafing about the woodyard on shore. Mr. Cavendish made fast to a blasted tree, then he climbed the bank; the men regarding him incuriously as he approached.

"Howdy," said Cavendish genially.

"Howdy," they answered.

"Where might I find the nearest doctor?" inquired Cavendish.

"Within about six foot of you," said one of the group.

"Meaning yourself?"

"Meaning myself."

Briefly Cavendish told the story of Yancy's rescue.

"Now, Doc, I want you should cast an eye over the way we've dressed his cuts, and I want the rest of you to come and take a look at him and tell who he is and where he belongs," he said in conclusion.

"I'll know him if he belongs within forty miles of here in any direction," said the doctor. But he shook his head when his eye rested on Yancy. "Never saw him," he said briefly.

"How about them bandages, Doc?" demanded Cavendish.

"Oh, I reckon they'll do," replied the doctor indifferently.

"Will he live?"

"I can't say. You'll know all about that inside the next forty-eight hours. Better let the rest have a look."

"Just feel of them bandages—sho', I got money in my pants!" Mr. Cavendish was rapidly losing his temper, yet he controlled himself until each man had taken a look at Yancy; but always with the same result—a shake of the head. "I reckon I can leave him here?" Cavendish asked, when the last man had looked and turned away.

"Leave him here—why?" demanded the doctor slowly.

"Because I'm going on, that's why. I'm headed for downstream, and he ain't in any sort of shape to say whether he wants to go or stop," explained Cavendish.

"You picked him up, didn't you?" asked one of the men.

"I certainly did," said Cavendish.

"Well, I reckon if you're so anxious for him to stay hereabout, you'd better stop, yourself," said the owner of the woodyard. "There ain't a house within two miles of here but mine, and he don't go there!"

"You're a healthy lot, you are!" said Cavendish. "I wonder your largeness of heart ain't ruptured your wishbones long ago!" So saying, he retired to the stern of his raft and leaned against the sweep-handle, apparently lost in thought. His visitors climbed the bank and reestablished themselves on the wood-ranks.

Presently Mr. Cavendish lifted his voice and addressed Polly and the six little Cavendishes at the other end of the raft. He asserted that he was the only well-born man within a radius of perhaps a hundred miles—he excepted no one. He knew who his father and mother were, and they had been legally married—he seemed to infer that this was not always the case. Mr. Cavendish glanced toward the shore, then he lifted his voice again, giving it as his opinion that he was the only Christian seen in those parts in the last fifty years. He offered to fight any gentleman who felt disposed to challenge this assertion. He sprang suddenly aloft, knocked his bare heels together and uttered an ear-piercing whoop. He subsided and gazed off into the red eye of the sun which was slipping back of the trees. Presently he spoke again. He offered to lick any gentleman who felt aggrieved by his previous remarks, for fifty cents, for a drink of whisky, for a chew of tobacco, for nothing—with one hand tied behind him! He sprang aloft, cracked his heels together as before and crowed insultingly; then he subsided into silence. An instant later he appeared stung by the acutest pangs of remorse. In a cringing tone he begged Polly to forgive him for bringing her to such a place. He bewailed that they had risked pollution by allowing any inhabitant of that region to set foot on the raft—he feared for the innocent minds of their children, and he implored her pardon. Perhaps it was better that they should cast off at once—unless one of the gentlemen on shore felt himself insulted, in which event he would remain to fight.

Then as he slowly worked the raft out toward the middle of the stream, he repeated all his former remarks, punctuating them with frequent whoops. He recapitulated the terms on which he could be induced to fight-fifty cents, a drink of liquor, a chew of tobacco, nothing! His shouts became fainter and fainter as the raft was swept down-stream, and finally died away in the distance.



CHAPTER XIII. THE JUDGE BREAKS JAIL

The sheriff had brought the judge's supper. He reported that the crowd was dispersing, and that on the whole public sentiment was not particularly hostile; indeed, he went so far as to say there existed a strong undercurrent of satisfaction that the jail should have so speedily justified itself. Moreover, there was a disposition to exalt the judge as having furnished the crowning touch to the day's pleasure.

"I reckon, sir, they'd have felt obliged to string you up if there wa'n't no jail," continued the sheriff lazily from the open door where he had seated himself. "I don't say there ain't them who don't maintain you had ought to be strung up as it is, but people are funny, sir; the majority talk like they might wish to keep you here indefinite. There's no telling when we'll get another prisoner. Tomorrow the blacksmith will fix some iron bars to your window so folks can look in and see you. It will give a heap more air to the place—"

"Unless I do get more air, you will not be troubled long by me!" declared the judge in a tone of melancholy conviction.

The building was intolerably hot, the advantages of ventilation having been a thing the citizens of Pleasantville had overlooked. But the judge was a reasonable soul; he was disposed to accept his immediate personal discomfort with a fine true philosophy; also, hope was stirring in his heart. Hope was second nature with him, for had he not lived all these years with the odds against him?

"You do sweat some, don't you? Oh, well, a man can stand a right smart suffering from heat like this and not die. It's the sun that's dangerous," remarked the sheriff consolingly. "And you had ought to suffer, sir! that's what folks are sent to jail for," he added.

"You will kindly bear in mind, sir, that I have been convicted of no crime!" retorted the judge.

"If you hadn't been so blamed particular you might have had company; politest darky you would meet anywhere. Well, sir, I didn't think the boss orator of the day would be the first prisoner—the joke certainly is on you!"

"I never saw such bloody-minded ruffians! Keep them out and keep me in—all I ask is to vindicate myself in the eyes of the world," said the judge.

"Well," began the sheriff severely, "ain't it enough to make 'em bloody-minded? Any one of 'em might have taken your money and got stuck. Just to think of that is what hets them up." He regarded the judge with a glance of displeasure. "I hate to see a man so durn unreasonable in his p'int of view. And you picked a lady—a widow-lady—say, ain't you ashamed?"

"Well, sir, what's going to happen to me?" demanded the judge angrily.

"I reckon you'll be tried. I reckon the law will deal with you—that is, if the public remains ca'm. Maybe it will come to the conclusion that it'd prefer a lynching—people are funny." He seemed to detach himself from the possible current of events.

"And, waking and sleeping, I have that before me!" cried the judge bitterly.

"You had ought to have thought of that sooner, when you was unloading that money. Why, it ain't even good counterfeit! I wonder a man of your years wa'n't slicker."

"Have you taken steps to find the boy, or Solomon Mahaffy?" inquired the judge.

"For what?"

"How is my innocence going to be established—how am I going to clear myself if my witnesses are hounded out of the county?"

"I love to hear you talk, sir. I told 'em at the raising to-day that I considered you one of the most eloquent minds I had ever listened to—but naturally, sir, you are too smart to be honest. You say you ain't been convicted yet; but you're going to be! There's quite a scramble for places on the jury already. There was pistols drawed up at the tavern by some of our best people, sir, who got het up disputin' who was eligible to serve." The judge groaned. "You should be thankful them pistols wasn't drawed on you, sir," said the sheriff amiably. "You've got a heap to be grateful about; for we've had one lynching, and we've rid one or two parties on a rail after giving 'em a coat of tar and feathers."

The judge shuddered. The sheriff continued placidly:

"I'll take it you'll get all that's coming to you, sir, say about twenty years—that had ought to let you out easy. Sort of round out your earthly career, and leave something due you t'other side of Jordan."

"I suppose there is no use in my pointing out to you that I did not know the money was counterfeit, and that I was quite innocent of any intention to defraud Mrs. Walker?" said the judge, with a weary, exasperated air.

"It don't make no difference where you got the money; you know that, for you set up to be some sort of a lawyer."

Presently the sheriff went his way into the dusk of the evening, and night came swiftly to fellowship the judge's fears. A single moonbeam found its way into the place, making a thin rift in the darkness. The judge sat down on the three-legged stool, which, with a shake-down bed, furnished the jail. His loneliness was a great wave of misery that engulfed him.

"Well, just so my life ain't cut short!" he whispered.

He had known a varied career, and what he was pleased to call his unparalleled misfortunes had reduced him to all kinds of desperate shifts to live, but never before had the law laid its hands on him. True, there had been times and seasons when he had been grateful for the gloom of the dark ways he trod, for echoes had taken the place of the living voice that had once spoken to his soul; but he could still rest his hand upon his heart and say that the law had always nodded to him to pass on.

Where was Solomon Mahaffy, and where Hannibal? He felt that Mahaffy could fend for himself, but he experienced a moment of genuine concern when he thought of the child. In spite of himself, his thoughts returned to him again and again. But surely some one would shelter and care for him!

"Yes—and work him like a horse, and probably abuse him into the bargain—"

Then there was a scarcely audible rustle on the margin of the woods, a dry branch snapped loudly. A little pause succeeded in which the judge's heart stood still. Next a stealthy step sounded in the clearing. The judge had an agonized vision of regulators and lynchers. The beat of his pulse quickened. He knew something of the boisterous horseplay of the frontier. The sheriff had spoken of tar and feathers—very quietly he stood erect and picked up the stool.

"Heaven helping me, I'll brain a citizen or two before it comes to that!" he told himself.

The cautious steps continued to approach. Some one paused below the closely shuttered window, and a hand struck the boards sharply. A whisper stole into the jail.

"Are you awake, Price?" It was Mahaffy who spoke.

"God bless you, Solomon Mahaffy!" cried the judge unsteadily.

"I've got the boy—he's with me," said Mahaffy.

"God bless you both!" repeated the judge brokenly. "Take care of him, Solomon. I feel better now, knowing he's in good hands."

"Please, Judge—" it was Hannibal

"Yes, dear lad?"

"I'm mighty sorry that ten dollars I loaned you was bad—but you don't need ever to pay it back!"

Mahaffy gave way to mirth.

"Never mind!" said the judge indulgently. "It performed all the essential functions of a perfectly legal currency. Just suppose we had discovered it was counterfeit before I took it to the tavern—that would have been a hardship!"

"It were Captain Murrell gave it to me," explained Hannibal.

"I consecrate myself to his destruction! Judge Slocum Price can not be humiliated with impunity!"

"I should think you would save your wind, Price, until you'd waddled out of danger!" Mahaffy spoke, gruffly.

"How are you going to get me out of this, Solomon—for I suppose you are here to break jail for me," said the judge.

Mahaffy inspected the building. He found that the door was secured by two ponderous hasps to which were fitted heavy padlocks, but the solid wooden shutter which closed the square hole in the gable that served as a window was fastened by a hasp and peg. He withdrew the peg, opened the shutter, and the judge's face, wreathed in smiles, appeared at the aperture.

"The blessed sky and air!" he murmured, breathing deep. "A week of this would have broken my spirit!"

"If you can, Price, you'd better come feet first," suggested Mahaffy.

"Not sufficiently acrobatic, Solomon—it's heads or I lose!" said the judge.

He thrust his shoulders into the opening and wriggled outward. Suddenly his forward movement was arrested.

"I was afraid of that!" he said, with a rather piteous smile. "It's my stomach, Solomon!" Mahaffy seized him by the shoulders with lean muscular hands. "Pull!" cried the judge hoarsely. But Mahaffy's vigorous efforts failed to move him.

"I guess you're stuck, Price!"

"Get your wind, Solomon," urged the judge, "and then, if Hannibal will reach up and work about my middle with his knuckles while you pull, I may get through." But even this expedient failed.

"Do you reckon you can get me back? I should not care to spend the night so!" said the judge. He was purple and panting.

"Let's try you edgewise!" And Mahaffy pushed the judge into the jail again.

"No," said the judge, after another period of resolute effort on his part and on the part of Mahaffy. "Providence has been kind to me in the past, but it's clear she didn't have me in mind when they cut this hole."

"Well, Price, I guess all we can do is to go back to town and see if I can get into my cabin—I've got an old saw there. If I can find it, I can come again to-morrow night and cut away one of the logs, or the cleats of the door."

"In Heaven's name, do that to-night, Solomon!" implored the judge. "Why procrastinate?"

"Price, there's a pack of dogs in this neighborhood, and we must have a full night to move in, or they'll pull us down before we've gone ten miles!"

The judge groaned.

"You're right, Solomon; I'd forgotten the dogs," and he groaned again.

Mahaffy closed and fastened the shutter, then he and Hannibal stole across the clearing and entered the woods. The judge flung off his clothes and went to bed, determined to sleep away as many hours as possible. He was only aroused by the arrival of his breakfast, which the sheriff brought about eight o'clock.

"Well, if I was in your boots I couldn't sleep like you!" remarked that official admiringly. "But I reckon, sir, this ain't the first time the penitentiary has stared you in the face."

"Then you reckon wrong," said the judge sententiously, as he hauled on his trousers.

"No?—you needn't hurry none. I'll get them dishes when I fetch your dinner," he added, as he took his leave.

A little later the blacksmith appeared and fitted three iron bars to the window.

"I reckon that'll hold you, old feller!" he observed pleasantly.

He was disposed to linger, since he was interested in the mechanical means employed in the making of counterfeit money and thirsted for knowledge at first hand. Also, he had in his possession a one-dollar bill which had come to him in the way of trade and which local experts had declared to be a spurious production. He passed it in between the bars and demanded the judge's opinion of it as though he were the first authority in the land. But he went no wiser than he came.

It was nearing the noon hour when the judge's solitude was again invaded. He first heard the distant murmur of voices on the road and passed an uneasy and restless ten minutes, with his eye to a crack in the door. He was soothed and reassured, however, when at last he caught sight of the sheriff.

"Well, judge, I got company for you," cried the sheriff cheerfully, as he threw open the door. "A hoss-thief!"

He pushed into the building a man, hatless and coatless, with a pair of pale villainous eyes and a tobacco-stained chin. The judge viewed the new-comer with disfavor. As for the horse-thief, he gave his companion in misery a coldly critical stare, seated himself on the stool, and with quite a fierce air devoted all his energy to mastication. He neither altered his position nor changed his expression until he and the judge were alone, then, catching the judge's eye, he made what seemed a casual movement with his hand, the three fingers raised; but to the judge this clearly was without significance, and the horse-thief manifested no further interest where he was concerned. He did not even condescend to answer the one or two civil remarks the judge addressed to him.

As the long afternoon wore itself away, the judge lived through the many stages of doubt and uncertainty, for suppose anything had happened to Mahaffy! When the sheriff came with his supper he asked him if he had seen or heard of his friend.

"Judge, I reckon he's lopin' on yet. I never seen a man of his years run as well as he done—it was inspirin' how he got over the ground!" answered the sheriff. Then he attempted conversation with the horse-thief, but was savagely cursed for his pains. "Well, I don't envy you your company none, sir," he remarked as he took leave of the judge.

Standing before the window, the judge watched the last vestige of light fade from the sky and the stars appear. Would Mahaffy come? The suspense was intolerable. It was possibly eight o'clock. He could not reasonably expect Mahaffy until nine or half past; to come earlier would be too great a risk. Suddenly out of the silence sounded a long-drawn whistle. Three times it was repeated. The horse-thief leaped to his feet.

"Neighbor, that means me!" he cried.

The moon was rising now, and by its light the judge saw a number of horsemen appear on the edge of the woods. They entered the clearing, picking their way among the stumps without haste or confusion. When quite close, five of the band dismounted; the rest continued on about the jail or cantered off toward the road. By this time the judge's teeth were chattering and he was dripping cold sweat at every pore. He prayed earnestly that they might hang the horsethief and spare him. The dismounted men took up a stick of timber that had been cut for the jail and not used.

"Look out inside, there!" cried a voice, and the log was dashed against the door; once—twice—it rose and fell on the clapboards, and under those mighty thuds grew up a wide gap through which the moonlight streamed splendidly. The horse-thief stepped between the dangling cleats and vanished. The judge, armed with the stool, stood at bay.

"What next?" a voice asked.

"Get dry brush—these are green logs—we'll burn this jail!"

"Hold on!" the judge recognized the horse-thief as the speaker. "There's an old party in there! No need to singe him!"

"Friend?"

"No, I tried him."

The judge tossed away the stool. He understood now that these men were neither lynchers nor regulators. With a confident, not to say jaunty step, he emerged from the jail.

"Your servant, gentlemen!" he said, lifting his hat.

"Git!" said one of the men briefly, and the judge moved nimbly away toward the woods. He had gained its shelter when the jail began to glow redly.

Now to find Solomon and the boy, and then to put the miles between himself and Pleasantville with all diligence. As he thought this, almost at his elbow Mahaffy and Hannibal rose from behind a fallen log. The Yankee motioned for silence and pointed west.

"Yes," breathed the judge. He noted that Mahaffy had a heavy pack, and the boy his long rifle. For a mile or two they moved forward without speech, the boy in the lead; while at his heels strode Mahaffy, with the judge bringing up the rear.

"How do you feel, Price?" asked Mahaffy at length, over his shoulder.

"Like one come into a fortune! Those horse-thieves gave me a fine scare, but did me a good turn."

Hannibal kept to the woods by a kind of instinct, and the two men yielded themselves to his guidance; but there was no speech between them. Mahaffy trod in the boy's steps, and the judge, puffing like an overworked engine, came close upon his heels. In this way they continued to advance for an hour or more, then the boy paused.

"Go on!" commanded Mahaffy.

"Do you 'low the judge can stand it?" asked Hannibal.

"Bless you, lad!" panted the judge feelingly.

"He's got to stand it—either that, or what do you suppose will happen to us if they start their dogs?" said Mahaffy.

"Solomon's right—you are sure we are not going in a circle, Hannibal?"

"Yes, I'm sure," said Hannibal. "Do you see that star? My Uncle Bob learned me how I was to watch that star when I wanted to keep going straight."

There was another long interval of silence. Bit by bit the sky became overcast. Vague, fleecy rifts of clouds appeared in the heavens. A wind sprang up, murmuring about them, there came a distant roll of thunder, while along the horizon the lightning rushed in broken, jagged lines of fire. In the east there was a pale flush that showed the black, hurrying clouds the winds had summoned out of space.

The booming thunder, first only the sullen menace of the approaching storm, rolled nearer and nearer, and the fierce light came in blinding sheets of flame. A ceaseless, pauseless murmur sprang up out of the distance, and the trees rocked with a mighty crashing of branches, while here and there a big drop of rain fell. Then the murmur swelled into a roar as the low clouds disgorged themselves. Drenched to the skin on the instant, the two men and the boy stumbled forward through the gray wake of the storm.

"What's come of our trail now?" shouted the judge, but the sound of his voice was lost in the rush of the hurrying winds and the roar of the airy cascades that fell about them.

An hour passed. There was light under the trees, faint, impalpable without visible cause, but they caught the first sparkle of the rain drops on leaf and branch; they saw the silvery rivulets coursing down the mossy trunks of old trees; last of all through a narrow rift in the clouds, the sun showed them its golden rim, and day broke in the steaming woods. With the sun, with a final rush of the hurrying wind, a final torrent, the storm spent itself, and there was only the drip from bough and leaf, or pearly opalescent points of moisture on the drenched black trunks of maple and oak; a sapphire sky, high arched, remote overhead; and the June day all about.

"What's come of they trail now?" cried the judge again. "He'll be a good dog that follows it through, these woods!"

They had paused on a thickly wooded hillside.

"We've come eight or ten miles if we have come a rod, Price," said Mahaffy, "and I am in favor of lying by for the day. When it comes dark we can go on again."

The judge readily acquiesced in this, and they presently found a dense thicket which they cautiously entered. Reaching the center of the tangled growth, they beat down the briers and bushes, or cut them away with their knives, until they had a little cleared space where they could build a fire. Then from the pack which Mahaffy carried, the rudiments of a simple but filling meal were produced.

"Your parents took no chances when they named you Solomon!" said the judge approvingly.



CHAPTER XIV. BELLE PLAIN

"Now, Tom," said Betty, with a bustling little air of excitement as she rose from the breakfast table that first morning at Belle Plain, "I am ready if you are. I want you to show me everything!"

"I reckon you'll notice some changes," remarked Tom.

He went from the room and down the hall a step or two in advance of her. On the wide porch Betty paused, breathing deep. The house stood on an eminence; directly before it at the bottom of the slight descent was a small bayou, beyond this the forest stretched away in one unbroken mass to the Mississippi. Here and there, gleaming in the brilliant morning light, some great bend of the river was visible through the trees, while the Arkansas coast, blue and distant, piled up against the far horizon.

"What is it you want to see, anyhow, Betty?" Tom demanded, turning on her.

"Everything—the place, Tom—Belle Plain! Oh, isn't it beautiful! I had no idea how lovely it was!" cried Betty, as with her eyes still fixed on the distant panorama of woods and water she went down the steps, Tom at her heels—he bet she'd get sick of it all soon enough, that was one comfort!

"Why, Tom! Why does the lawn look like this?"

"Like what?" inquired Tom.

"Why, this—all weeds and briers, and the paths overgrown?" and as Betty surveyed the unkempt waste that had once been a lawn, a little frown fixed itself on her smooth brow.

Mr. Ware rubbed his chin reflectively with the back of his hand.

"That sort of thing looked all right, Bet," he said, "but it kept five or six of the best hands out of the fields right at the busiest time of the year."

"Haven't I slaves enough?" she asked.

The dull color crept into Ware's cheeks. He hated her for that "I!" So she was going to come that on him, was she? And he'd worked himself like a horse to bring in more land. Why, he'd doubled the acreage in cotton and corn in the last four years! He smothered his sense of hurt and indignation.

"Don't you want to see the crops, Bet? Let me order a team and show you about, you couldn't walk over the place in a week!" he urged.

The girl shook her head and moved swiftly down the path that led from terrace to terrace to the margin of the bayou. At the first terrace she paused. All below was a wilderness of tangled vines and brush. She faced Tom rather piteously. What had been lost was more than he could possibly understand. Her father had planned these grounds which he was allowing a riotous second growth to swallow up.

"It's positively squalid!" cried Betty, with a little stamp of her foot.

Ware glanced about with dull eyes. The air of neglect and decay which was everywhere visible, and which was such a shock to Betty, had not been reached in a season, he was really convinced that the place looked pretty much as it had always looked.

"I'll tell you, Betty, I'm busy this morning; you poke about and see what you want done and we'll do it," he said, and made a hasty retreat to his office, a little brick building at the other side of the house.

Betty returned to the porch and seating herself on the top step with her elbows on her knees and her chin sunk in the palms of her hands, gazed about her miserably enough. She was still seated there when half an hour later Charley Norton galloped up the drive from the highroad. Catching sight of her on the porch he sprang from the saddle, and, throwing his reins to a black boy, hurried to her side.

"Inspecting your domain, Betty?" he asked, as he took his place near her on the step.

"Why didn't you tell me, Charley—or at least prepare me for this?" she asked, almost tearfully.

"How was I to know, Betty? I haven't been here since you went away, dear—what was there to bring me? Old Tom would make a cow pasture out of the Garden of Eden, wouldn't he—a beautiful, practical, sordid soul he is!"

"What am I going to do, Charley?"

"Keep after him until you get what you want, it's the only way to manage Tom that I know of."

"It's horrid to have to assert one's self!"

"You'll have to with Tom—you must, Betty—he won't understand anything else." Then he added: "Let's look around and see what's needed, a season or two of care will remedy the most of this neglect. Just make Tom put a lot of hands in here with brush-hooks and axes and soon you'll not know the place!"

Norton spent the day at Belle Plain; and though he was there on his good behavior as the result of an agreement they had reached on board The Naiad, he proposed twice.

"My intentions are all right, Betty," he assured her in extenuation. "But I've the worst memory imaginable. Oh, yes, the lower terrace is badly gullied, but it's no great matter, it can be fixed with a little work."

It was soon plain to Betty that Tom's ideals, if he possessed any, had not led him in the direction of what he termed display. His social impulse had suffered atrophy. The house was utterly disorganized; there was a dearth of suitable servants. Those she had known were gone—sold, she learned. Tom explained that there had been no need for them since he had lived pretty much in his office, what had been the use in keeping darkies standing about doing nothing? He had got rid of those show niggers and put their price in husky field hands, who could be made to do a day's work and not feel they were abused.

But Tom was mistaken in his supposition that Betty would soon tire of Belle Plain. She demanded men, and teams, and began on the lawns. This interested and fascinated her. She was out at sun-up to direct her laborers. She had the advantage of Charley Norton's presence and advice for the greater part of each day in the week, and Sundays he came to look over what had been accomplished, and, as Tom firmly believed, to put that little fool up to fresh nonsense. He could have booted him!

As the grounds took shape before her delighted eyes, Betty found leisure to institute a thorough reformation indoors. A number of house servants were rescued from the quarters and she began to instruct them in their new duties.

Tom was sick at heart. The little fool would cripple the place. It gave him acute nausea to see the gangs at work about the lawns; it made him sicker to pass through the house. There were five or six women in the kitchen now—he was damned if he could see what they found to do—there was a butler and a page. Betty had levied on the stables for one of the best teams to draw the family carriage, which had not been in use since her mother's death; there was a coachman for that, and another little monkey to ride on the rumble and hop down and open gates. This came of sending girls away to school—they only learned foolishness.

And those niggers about the house had to be dressed for their new work; the butler, a cracking plow-hand he was, wore better clothes than he—Tom—did. No wonder he was sick;—and waste! Tom knew all about that when the bills began to come in from Memphis. Why, that pink-faced chit, he always referred to her in his own mind now as a pink-faced chit, was evolving a scheme of life that would cost eight or ten thousand dollars a year to maintain, and she was talking of decorators for the house, either from New Orleans or Philadelphia, and new furniture from top to bottom.

Tom felt that he was being robbed. Then he realized with a sense of shock that here was a fortune of over half a million in lands and slaves which he had managed and manipulated all these years, but which was not his. It was true that under the terms of his stepmother's will he would inherit it in the event of Betty's death—well, she looked like dying, a whole lot—she was as strong as a mule, those soft rounded curves covered plenty of vigorous muscle; Tom hated the very sight of her. A pink-faced chit bubbling over with life and useless energy, a perfect curse she was, with all sorts of extravagant tastes and he was powerless to check her, for, although he was still her guardian, there were certain provisions of the will—he consulted the copy he kept locked up in his desk in the office—that permitted her to do pretty much as she pleased with her income. It was a hell of a will! She could spend fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year if she wanted to and he couldn't prevent it. It was an iniquitous document!

Well, the place could go straight off to the devil, he wouldn't wear out his life economizing for her to waste—he didn't get a thank-you—and he knew that nobody took off the land bigger crops than he did, while bale for bale his cotton outsold all other cotton raised in the county—that was the kind of a manager he was. He wagged his head in self-approval. And what did he get out of it? A lump sum each year with a further lump sum of twenty thousand dollars when she came of age—soon now—or married. Tom's eyes bulged from their sockets—she'd be doing that next, to spite him!

Betty's sphere of influence rapidly extended itself. She soon began to have her doubts concerning the treatment accorded the slaves, and was not long in discovering that Hicks, the overseer, ran things with a heavy hand. Matters reached a crisis one day when, happening to ride through the quarters, she found him disciplining a refractory black. She turned sick at the sight. Here was a slave actually being whipped by another slave while Hicks stood looking on with his hands in his pockets, and with a brutal satisfied air. When he caught sight of the girl, he sang out,

"That'll do; he's had enough, I reckon, to learn him!" He added sullenly to Betty, "Sorry you seen this, Miss!"

"How dare you order such a punishment without authority!" cried Betty furiously.

Hicks gave her a black scowl.

"I don't need no authority to whip a shirker," he said insolently, as he turned away.

"Stop!" commanded Betty, her eyes blazing. She strove to keep her voice steady. "You shall not remain at Belle Plain another hour."

Hicks said nothing. He knew it would take more than her saying so to get him off the place. Betty turned her horse and galloped back to the house. She felt that she was in no condition to see Tom just at that moment, and dismounting at the door ran up-stairs to her room.

Meantime the overseer sought out Ware in his office. His manner of stating his grievance was singular. He began by swearing at his employer. He had been insulted before all the quarter—his rage fairly choked him, he could not speak.

Tom seized the opportunity to swear back. He wanted to know if he hadn't troubles enough without the overseer's help? If he'd got himself insulted it was his own affair and he could lump it, generally speaking, and get out of that office! But Tom's fury quickly spent itself. He wanted to know what the matter was.

"Sent you off the place, did she; well, you'll have to eat crow. I'll do all I can. I don't know what girls were ever made for anyhow, damned if I do!" he added plaintively, as a realization of a stupendous mistake on the part of nature overwhelmed him.

Hicks consented to eat crow only after Mr. Ware had cursed and cajoled him into a better and more forgiving frame of mind. Then Tom hurried off to find Betty and put matters right; a more difficult task than he had reckoned on, for Betty was obdurate and her indignation flared up at mention of the incident; all his powers of argument and persuasion were called into requisition before she would consent to Hicks remaining, and then only on that most uncertain tenure, his good behavior.

"Now you come up to the house," said Tom, when he had won his point and gone back to Hicks, "and get done with it. I reckon you talked when you should have kept your blame familiar mouth shut! Come on, and get it over with, and say you're sorry."

Later, after Hicks had made his apology, the two men smoked a friendly pipe and discussed the situation. Tom pointed out that opposition was useless, a losing game, you could get your way by less direct means. She wouldn't stay long at Belle Plain, but while she did remain they must avoid any more crises of the sort through which they had just passed, and presently; she'd be sick of the place. Tom wagged his head. She was sick of it already only she hadn't the sense to know it. It wasn't good enough. Nothing suited-the house—the grounds—nothing!

In the midst of her activities Betty occasionally found time to think of Bruce Carrington. She was sure she did not wish to see him again! But when three weeks had passed she began to feel incensed that he had not appeared. She thought of him with hot cheeks and a quickening beat of the heart. It was anger. Naturally she was very indignant, as she had every right to be! He was the first man who had dared—!

Then one day when she had decided for ever to banish all memory of him from her mind, and never, under any circumstances, to think of him again, he presented himself at Belle Plain.

She was in her room just putting the finishing touches to an especially satisfying toilet when her maid tapped on the door and told her there was a gentleman in the parlor who wished to see her.

"Is it Mr. Norton?" asked Betty.

"No, Miss—he didn't give no name, Miss."

When Betty entered the parlor a moment later she saw her caller standing with his back turned toward her as he gazed from one of the windows, but she instantly recognized those broad shoulders, and the fine poise of the shapely head that surmounted them.

"Oh, Mr. Carrington—" and Betty stopped short, while her face grew rather pale and then crimsoned. Then she advanced quite boldly and held out a frigid hand, which he took carefully. "I didn't know—so you are alive—you disappeared so suddenly that night—"

"Yes, I'm alive," he said, and then with a smile. "But I fear before you get through with me we'll both wish I were not, Betty."

"Don't call me Betty."

"Who was that man who met you at New Madrid? He can't have you, whoever he is!" His eyes dwelt on her tenderly, and the remembered spell of her fresh youthful beauty deepened itself for him.

"Perhaps he doesn't want me—"

"Yes, he does. That was plain as day."

Betty surveyed him from under her lashes. What could she do with this man? Nothing affected him. He seemed to have crossed some intangible barrier and to stand closer to her than any other man had ever stood.

"Do you still hate me, Betty—Miss Malroy—is there anything I can say or do that will make you forgive me?" He looked at her penitently.

But Betty hardened her heart against him and prepared to keep him in place. Remembering that he was still holding her hand, she recovered it.

"Will you sit down?" she indicated a chair. He seated himself and Betty put a safe distance between them. "Are you staying in the neighborhood, Mr. Carrington?" she asked, rather unkindly. How did he dare come here when she had forgotten him and her annoyance? And now the sight of him brought back memories of that disagreeable night on that horrid boat—he had deceived her about that boat, too—she would never forgive him for that—she had trusted him and he had clearly shown that he was not to be trusted; and Betty closed her pretty mouth until it was a thin red line and looked away that she might not see his hateful face.

"No, I'm not staying in the neighborhood. When I left you, I made up my mind I'd wait at New Madrid until I could come on down here and say I was sorry."

"And it's taken you all this time?"

Carrington regarded her seriously.

"I reckon I must have come for more time, Betty—Miss Malroy." In spite of herself, Betty glowed under the caressing humor of his tone.

"Really—you must have chosen poorly then when you selected New Madrid. It couldn't have been a good place for your purpose."

"I think if I could have made up my mind to stay there long enough, it would have answered," said Carrington. "But when a down-river boat tied up 'there yesterday it was more than I could stand. You 'see there's danger in a town like New Madrid of getting too sorry. I thought we'd better discuss this point—"

"Mayn't I show you Belle Plain?" asked Betty quickly.

But Carrington shook his head.

"I don't care anything about that," he said. "I didn't come here to see Belle Plain."

"You certainly are candid," said Betty.

"I intend to be honest with you always."

"Dear me—but I don't know that I shall particularly like it. Do you think it was quite fair to select the boat you did, or was your resolution to be always honest formed later?" demanded Betty severely.

He looked at her with great sweetness of expression.

"I didn't advise that boat for speed, only for safety. Betty, doesn't it mean anything to you that I love you? I admit that I wish it had been twice as slow!" he added reflectively, as an afterthought. He looked at her steadily, and Betty's dark lashes drooped as the color mounted to her face.

"I don't," she said quickly. She rose from her chair, and Carrington followed her example with a lithe movement that bespoke muscles in good training. She led the way through the wide hall and out to the porch.

"Now I am going to show you all over the place," she announced resolutely. She stood on the top step, looking off into the flaming west where the sun rode low in the heavens. "Isn't it lovely, Mr. Carrington, isn't it beautiful?"

"Very beautiful!" Carrington's glance was fixed on her face.

"If you don't care to see Belle Plain," began Betty, rather indignantly. "No, I don't, Betty. This is enough for me. I'll come for that some other time if you'll be good enough to let me?"

"Then you expect to remain in the neighborhood?"

"I've given up the river, and I'm going to get hold of some land—"

"Land?" said Betty, with a rising inflection.

"Yes, land."

"I thought you were a river-man?"

"I'm a river-man no longer. I am going to be a planter now. But I'll tell you why, and all about it some other day." Then he held out his hand. "Goodby," he added.

"Are you going—good-by, Mr. Carrington," and Betty's fingers tingled with his masterful clasp long after he had gone.

Carrington sauntered slowly down the path to the highroad.

"She didn't ask me to come back—an oversight," he told himself cheerfully.

Just beyond the gates he met that same young fellow he had seen at New Madrid. Norton nodded good-naturedly as he passed, and Carrington, glancing back, saw that he turned in at Belle Plain. He shrugged his shoulders, and went on his way not rejoicing.



CHAPTER XV. THE SHOOTING-MATCH AT BOGGS'

The judge's faith in the reasonableness of mankind having received a staggering blow, there began a somewhat furtive existence for himself, for Solomon Mahaffy, and for the boy. They kept to little frequented byways, and usually it was the early hours of morning, or the cool of late afternoons when they took the road.

The heat of silent middays found them lounging beside shady pools, where the ripple of fretted waters filled the pauses in their talk. It was then that the judge and Mahaffy exchanged views on literature and politics, on religion and politics, on the public debt and politics, on canals and national roads and more politics. They could and did honestly differ at great length and with unflagging energy on these vital topics, especially politics, for they were as far apart mentally as they were close together morally.

Mahaffy, morose and embittered, regarded the life they were living as an unmixed hardship. The judge entered upon it with infinite zest. He displayed astonishing adaptability, while he brought all the resources of a calm and modest knowledge to bear on the vexed problem of procuring sustenance for himself and for his two companions.

"To an old campaigner like me, nothing could be more delightful than this holiday, coming as it does on the heels of grinding professional activity," he observed to Mahaffy. "This is the way our first parents lived—close to nature, in touch with her gracious beneficence! Sir, this experience is singularly refreshing after twenty years of slaving at the desk. If any man can grasp the possibilities of a likely looking truck-patch at a glance, I am that man, and as for getting around in the dark and keeping the lay of the land—well, I suppose it's my military training. Jackson always placed the highest value on such data as I furnished him. He leaned on me more than any other man, Solomon—"

"I've heard he stood up pretty straight," said Mahaffy affably. The judge's abandoned conduct distressed him not a little, but his remonstrances had been in vain.

"I consider that when society subjected me to the indignity of arrest, I was relieved of all responsibility. Injustice must bear its own fruit," the judge had answered him sternly.

His beginnings had been modest enough: a few ears of corn, a few hills of potatoes, and the like, had satisfied him; then one night he appeared in camp with two streaks of scarlet down the side of his face.

"Are you hurt, Price?" demanded Mahaffy, betraying an anxiety of which he was instantly ashamed.

"Let me relieve your apprehension, Solomon; it's only a trickle of stewed fruit. I folded a couple of pies and put them in the crown of my hat," explained the judge.

"You mean you've been in somebody's springhouse?"

"It was unlocked, Solomon, This will be a warning to the owner. I consider I have done him a kindness."

Thus launched on a career of plunder, the judge very speedily accumulated a water bucket—useful when one wished to milk a cow—an ax from a woodpile, a kettle from a summer kitchen, a tin of soft soap, and an excellent blanket from a wash-line.

"For the boy, Solomon," he said gently, when he caught Mahaffy's steady disapproving glance fixed upon him as he displayed this last trophy.

"What sort of an example are you setting him?"

"The world is full of examples I'd not recommend, Solomon. One must learn to discriminate. A body can no more follow all the examples than he can follow all the roads, and I submit that the ends of morality can as well be served in showing a child what he should not do as in showing him what he should. Indeed, I don't know but it's the finer educational idea!"

Thereafter the judge went through the land with an eye out for wash-lines.

"I'm looking for a change of linen for the boy, Solomon," he said. "Let me bring you a garment or two. Eh—how few men you'll find of my build; those last shirts I got were tight around the armholes and had no more tail than a rabbit!"

Two nights later Mr. Mahaffy accepted a complete change of under linen, but without visible sign of gratitude.

A night later the judge disappeared from camp, and after a prolonged absence returned puffing and panting with three watermelons, which proved to be green, since his activity had been much in advance of the season.

"I don't suppose there is any greater tax on human ingenuity than to carry three watermelons!" he remarked. "The human structure is ideally adapted to the transportation of two—it can be done with comfort; but when a body tackles three he finds that nature herself is opposed to the proceeding! Well, I am going back for a bee-gum I saw in a fence corner. Hannibal will enjoy that—a child is always wanting sweets!"

In this fashion they fared gaily across the state, but as they neared the Mississippi the judge began to consider the future. His bright and illuminating intelligence dealt with this problem in all its many-sidedness.

"I wish you'd enter one of the learned professions, Solomon—have you ever thought of medicine?" he inquired. Mr. Mahaffy laughed. "But why not, Solomon? There is nothing like a degree or a title—that always stamps a man, gives him standing—"

"What do I know about the human system?"

"I should certainly hope you know as much as the average doctor knows. We could locate in one of these new towns where they have the river on one side and the canal on the other, and where everybody has the ague—"

"What do I know about medicine?" inquired Mahaffy.

"As much as Aesculapius, no doubt—even he had to make a beginning. The torch of science wasn't lit in a day—you must be willing to wait; but you've got a good sick-room manner. Have you ever thought of opening an undertaker's shop? If you couldn't cure them you might bury them."

A certain hot afternoon brought them into the shaded main street of a straggling village. Near the door of the principal building, a frame tavern, a man was seated, with his feet on the horse-rack. There was no other sign of human occupancy.

"How do you do, sir?" said the judge, halting before this solitary individual whom he conjectured to be the 'landlord. The man nodded, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his vest. "What's the name of this bustling metropolis?" continued the judge, cocking his head on one side.

As he spoke, Bruce Carrington appeared in the tavern door; pausing there, he glanced curiously at the shabby wayfarers.

"This is Raleigh, in Shelby County, Tennessee, one of the states of the Union of which, no doubt, you've heard rumor in your wanderings," said the landlord.

"Are you the voice from the tomb?" inquired the judge, in a tone of playful sarcasm.

Carrington, amused, sauntered toward him.

"That's one for you, Mr. Pegloe!" he said.

"I am charmed to meet a gentleman whose spirit of appreciation shows his familiarity with a literary allusion," said the judge, bowing.

"We ain't so dead as we look," said Pegloe. "Just you keep on to Boggs' race-track, straight down the road, and you'll find that out—everybody's there to the hoss-racing and shooting-match. I reckon you've missed the hoss-racing, but you'll be in time for the shooting. Why ain't you there, Mr. Carrington?"

"I'm going now, Mr. Pegloe," answered Carrington, as he followed the judge, who, with Mahaffy and the boy, had moved off.

"Better stop at Boggs'!" Pegloe called after them.

But the judge had already formed his decision.

Horse-racing and shooting-matches were suggestive of that progressive spirit, the absence of which he had so much lamented at the jail raising at Pleasantville—Memphis was their objective point, but Boggs' became a side issue of importance. They had gained the edge of the village when Carrington overtook them. He stepped to Hannibal's side.

"Here, let me carry that long rifle, son!" he said. Hannibal looked up into his face, and yielded the piece without a word. Carrington balanced it on his big, muscular palm. "I reckon it can shoot—these old guns are hard to beat!" he observed.

"She's the clostest shooting rifle I ever sighted," said Hannibal promptly. "You had ought to see the judge shoot her—my! he never misses!"

Carrington laughed.

"The clostest shooting rifle you ever sighted—eh?" he repeated. "Why, aren't you afraid of it?"

"No," said Hannibal scornfully. "But she kicks you some if you don't hold her right."

There was a rusty name-plate on the stock of the old sporting rifle; this had caught Carrington's eye.

"What's the name here? Oh, Turberville."

The judge, a step or two in advance, wheeled in his tracks with a startling suddenness.

"What?" he faltered, and his face was ashen.

"Nothing, I was reading the name here; it is yours; sir, I suppose?" said Carrington.

The color crept slowly back into the judge's cheeks, but a tremulous hand stole up to his throat.

"No, sir—no; my name is Price—Slocum Price! Turberville—Turberville—" he muttered thickly, staring stupidly at Carrington.

"It's not a common name; you seem to have heard it before?" said the latter.

A spasm of pain passed over the judge's face.

"I—I've heard it. The name is on the rifle, you say?"

"Here on the stock, yes."

The judge took the gun and examined it in silence.

"Where did you get this rifle, Hannibal?" he at length asked brokenly.

"I fetched it away from the Barony, sir; Mr. Crenshaw said I might have it."

The judge gave a great start, and a hoarse inarticulate murmur stole from between his twitching lips.

"The Barony—the Barony—what Barony? The Quintard seat in North Carolina, is that what you mean?"

"Yes," said the boy.

The judge, as though stunned, stared at Hannibal and stared at the rifle, where the rusted name-plate danced before his eyes.

"What do you know of the Barony, Hannibal?" the words came slowly from the judge's lips, and his face had gone gray again.

"I lived at the Barony once, until Uncle Bob took me to Scratch Hill to be with him. It were Mr. Crenshaw said I was to have the old sp'otin' rifle," said Hannibal.

"You—you lived at the Barony?" repeated the judge, and a dull stupid wonder struck through his tone, he passed a shaking hand before his eyes. "How long ago—when?" he continued.

"I don't know how long it were, but until Uncle Bob carried me away after the old general died."

The judge slipped a hand under the child's chin and tilted his face back so that he might look into it. For a long moment he studied closely those small features, then with a shake of the head he handed the rifle to Carrington, and without a word strode forward. Carrington had been regarding Hannibal with a quickened interest.

"Hello!" he said, as the judge moved off. "You're the boy I saw at Scratch Hill!"

Hannibal gave him a frightened glance, and edged to Mr. Mahaffy's side, but did not answer him.

"What's become of Bob Yancy?" Carrington went on. He looked from Mahaffy to the judge; externally neither of these gentlemen was calculated to inspire confidence. Mahaffy, keenly alive to this fact, returned Carrington's glance with a fixed and hostile stare. "Come—" said Carrington good-naturedly, "you surely remember me?"

"Yes, sir; I reckon I do—"

"Can't you tell me about Mr. Yancy?"

"No, sir; I don't know exactly where he is—"

"But how did you get here?" persisted Carrington.

Suddenly Mahaffy turned on him.

"Don't you see he's with us?" he said truculently.

"Well, my dear sir, I certainly intended no offense!" rejoined Carrington rather hotly.

Mahaffy was plainly disturbed, the debased currency of his affection was in circulation where Hannibal was concerned, and he eyed the river-man askance. He was prepared to give him the lie should he set up any claim to the boy.

The judge plodded forward, his shoulders drooped, and his head bowed. For once silence had fixed its seal upon his lips, no inspiring speech fell from them. He had been suddenly swept back into a past he had striven these twenty years and more to forget, and his memories shaped themselves fantastically. Surely if ever a man had quitted the world that knew him, he was that man! He had died and yet he lived—lived horribly, without soul or heart, the empty shell of a man.

A turn in the road brought them within sight of Boggs' racetrack, a wide level meadow. The judge paused irresolutely, and turned his bleared face on his friend.

"We'll stop here, Solomon," he said rather wearily, for the spirit of boast and jest was quite gone out of him. He glanced toward Carrington. "Are you a resident of these parts, sir?" he asked.

"I've been in Raleigh three days altogether," answered Carrington, falling into step at his side, and they continued on across the meadow in silence.

"Do you observe the decorations of those refreshment booths?—the tasteful disposition of our national colors, sir?" the judge presently inquired.

Carrington smiled; he was able to follow his companion's train of thought.

They were elbowing the crowd now. Here were men from the small clearings in homespun and butternut or fringed hunting-shirts, with their women folk trailing after them. Here, too, in lesser numbers, were the lords of the soil, the men who counted their acres by the thousand and their slaves by the score. There was the flutter of skirts among the moving groups, the nodding of gay parasols that shaded fresh young faces, while occasionally a comfortable family carriage with some planter's wife or daughter rolled silently over the turf; for Boggs' race-track was a famous meeting-place where families that saw one another not above once or twice a year, friends who lived a day's hard drive apart even when summer roads were at their best, came as to a common center.

The judge's dull eye kindled, the haggard lines that had streaked his face erased themselves. This was life, opulent and full. These swift rolling carriages with their handsome women, these well-dressed men on foot, and splendidly mounted, all did their part toward lifting him out of his gloom. He settled his hat on his head with a rakish slant and his walk became a strut, he courted observation; he would have been grateful for a word, even a jest at his expense.

A cry from Hannibal drew his attention. Turning, he was in time to see the boy bound away. An instant later, to his astonishment, he saw a young girl who was seated with two men in an open carriage, spring to the ground, and dropping to her knees put her arms about the tattered little figure.

"Why, Hannibal!" cried Betty Malroy.

"Miss Betty! Miss Betty!" and Hannibal buried his head on her shoulder.

"What is it, Hannibal; what is it, dear?"

"Nothing, only I'm so glad to find you!"

"I am glad to see you, too!" said Betty, as she wiped his tears away. "When did you get here, dear?"

"We got here just to-day, Miss Betty," said Hannibal.

Mr. Ware, careless as to dress, with a wiry black beard of a week's growth decorating his chin and giving an unkempt appearance which his expression did not mitigate, it being of the sour and fretful sort; scowled down on the child. He had favored Boggs' with his presence, not because he felt the least interest in horse-racing, but because he had no faith in girls, and especially had he profound mistrust of Betty. She was so much easily portable wealth, a pink-faced chit ready to fall into the arms of the first man who proposed to her. But Charley Norton had not seemed disturbed by the planter's forbidding air. Between those two there existed complete reciprocity of feeling, inasmuch as Tom's presence was as distasteful to Norton as his own presence was distressing to Ware.

"Where is your Uncle Bob, Hannibal?" Betty asked, glancing about, and at her question a shadow crossed the child's face and the tears gathered again in his eyes.

"Ain't you seen him, Miss Betty?" he whispered. He had been sustained by the belief that when he found her he should find his Uncle Bob, too.

"Why, what do you mean, Hannibal—isn't your Uncle Bob with you?" demanded Betty.

"He got hurt in a fight, and I got separated from him way back yonder just after we came out of the mountains." He looked up piteously into Betty's face. "But you think he'll find me, don't you?"

"Why, you poor little thing!" cried Betty compassionately, and again she sank on her knees at Hannibal's side, and slipped her arms about him. The child began to cry softly.

"What ragamuffin's this, Betty?" growled Ware disgustedly.

But Betty did not seem to hear.

"Did you come alone, Hannibal?" she asked.

"No, ma'am; the judge and Mr. Mahaffy, they fetched me."

The judge had drawn nearer as Betty and Hannibal spoke together, but Mahaffy hung back. There were gulfs not to be crossed by him. It was different with the judge; the native magnificence of his mind fitted him for any occasion. He pulled up his stock, and coaxed a half-inch of limp linen down about his wrists, then very splendidly he lifted his napless hat from his shiny bald head and pressing it against his fat chest with much fervor, elegantly inclined himself from the hips.

"Allow me the honor to present myself, ma'am—Price is my name—Judge Slocum Price. May I be permitted to assume that this is the Miss Betty of whom my young protege so often speaks?" The judge beamed benevolently, and rested a ponderous hand on the boy's head.

Tom Ware gave him a glance of undisguised astonishment, while Norton regarded him with an expression of stunned and resolute gravity. Mahaffy seemed to be undergoing a terrible moment of uncertainty. He was divided between two purposes: one was to seize Price by the coat tails and drag him back into the crowd; the other was to kick him, and himself fly that spot. This singular impulse sprang from the fact that he firmly believed his friend's appearance was sufficient to blast the boy's chances in every quarter; nor did he think any better of himself.

Betty looked at the judge rather inquiringly.

"I am glad he has found friends," she said slowly. She wanted to believe that judge Slocum Price was somehow better than he looked, which should have been easy, since it was incredible that he could have been worse.

"He has indeed found friends," said the judge with mellow unction, and swelling visibly. These prosperous appearing people should be of use to him, God willing—he made a sweeping gesture. "I have assumed the responsibility of his future—he is my care."

Now Betty caught sight of Carrington and bowed. Occupied with Hannibal and the judge, she had been unaware of his presence. Carrington stepped forward.

"Have you met Mr. Norton, and my brother, Mr. Carrington?" she asked.

The two young men shook hands, and Ware improved the opportunity to inspect the new-comer. But as his glance wandered over him, it took in more than Carrington, for it included the fine figure and swarthy face of Captain Murrell, who, with his eyes fixed on Betty, was thrusting his eager way through the crowd.

Murrell had presented himself at Belle Plain the day before. For upward of a year, Ware had enjoyed great peace of mind as a direct result of his absence from west Tennessee, and when he thought of him at all he had invariably put a period to his meditations with, "I hope to hell he catches it wherever he is!" It had really seemed a pernicious thing to him that no one had shown sufficient public spirit to knock the captain on the head, and that this had not been done, utterly destroyed his faith in the good intentions of Providence.

More than this, Betty had spoken of the captain in no uncertain terms. He was not to repeat that visit. Tom must make that point clear to him. Tom might entertain him if he liked at his office, but the doors of Belle Plain were closed against Captain Murrell; he was not to set his foot inside of them.

As Murrell approached, the hot color surged into Betty's face. As for Hannibal, he had gone white to the lips, and his small hand clutched hers desperately; he was remembering all the terror of that hot dawn at Slosson's.

Murrell, with all his hardihood, realized that a too great confidence had placed him in an awkward position, for Betty turned her back on him and began an animated conversation with Carrington and Charley Norton; only Hannibal and the judge continued to regard him; the boy with a frightened, fascinated stare, the judge with a wide sweet smile.

Hicks, the Belle Plain overseer, pushed his way to Murrell's side.

"Here, John Murrell, ain't you going to show us a trick or two?" he inquired.

Murrell turned quickly with a sense of relief.

"If you can spare me your rifle," he said, but his face wore a bleak look. Glancing at Betty, he took up his station with the other contestants, whereupon two or three young planters silently withdrew from the firing-line.

"Don't you think you've seen about enough, Bet?" demanded Tom. "You don't care for the shooting, do you?"

"That's the very thing I do care for; I think I'd rather see that than the horse-racing," said Betty perversely. This had been her first appearance in public since her home-coming, and she felt that it had been most satisfactory. She had met everybody she had ever known, and scores of new people; her progress had been quite triumphal in spite of Tom, and in spite of Charley Norton, who was plainly not anxious to share her with any one, his devotion being rather of the monopolizing sort.

Betty now seated herself in the carriage, with Hannibal beside her, quietly determined to miss nothing. The judge, feeling that he had come into his own, leaned elegantly against the wheel, and explained the merits of each shot as it was made.

"Our intruding friend, the Captain, ma'am, is certainly a master with his weapon," he observed.

Betty was already aware of this. She turned to Norton.

"Charley, I can't bear to have him win!"

"I am afraid he will, for anything I can do, Betty," said Norton.

"Mr. Carrington, can't you shoot?—do take Hannibal's rifle and beat him," she coaxed.

"Don't be too sure that I can!" said Carrington, laughing.

"But I know you can!" urged Betty.

"I hope you gentlemen are not going to let me walk off with the prize?" said Murrell, approaching the group about the carriage.

"Mr. Norton, I am told you are clever with the rifle."

"I am not shooting to-day," responded Norton haughtily.

Murrell stalked back to the line.

"At forty paces I'd risk it myself, ma'am," said the judge. "But at a hundred, offhand like this, I should most certainly fail—I've burnt too much midnight oil. Eh—what—damn the dog, he's scored another center shot!"

"It would be hard to beat that—" they heard Murrell say.

"At least it would be quite possible to equal it," said Carrington, advancing with Hannibal's rifle in his hands. It was tossed to his shoulder, and poured out its contents in a bright stream of flame. There was a moment of silence.

"Center shot, ma'am!" cried the judge.

"I'll add twenty dollars to the purse!" Norton addressed himself to Carrington. "And I shall hope, sir, to see it go in to your pocket."

"Our sentiments exactly, ma'am, are they not?" said the judge.

"Perhaps you'd like to bet a little of your money?" remarked Murrell.

"I'm ready to do that too, sir," responded Norton quietly.

"Five hundred dollars, then, that this gentleman in whose success you take so great an interest, can neither equal nor better my next shot!" Murrell had produced a roll of bills as he spoke. Norton colored with embarrassment. Carrington took in the situation.

"Wait a minute—" he said, and passed his purse to Norton.

"Cover his money, sir," he added briefly.

"Thank you, my horses have run away with most of my cash," explained Norton.

"Your shot!" said Carrington shortly, to the outlaw.

Murrell taking careful aim, fired, clipping the center.

As soon as the result was known, Carrington raised his rifle; his bullet, truer than his opponent's, drove out the center. Murrell turned on him with an oath.

"You shoot well, but a board stuck against a tree is no test for a man's nerve," he said insolently.

Carrington was charging his piece.

"I only know of one other kind of target," he observed coolly.

"Yes—a living target!" cried Murrell.

The crowd opened from right to left. Betty's face grew white, and uttering a smothered cry she started to descend from the carriage, but the judge rested his hand on her arm.

"No, my dear young, lady, our friend is quite able to care for himself."

Carrington shook the priming into the pan of Hannibal's ancient weapon.

"I am ready for that, too," he said. There was a slow smile on his lips, but his eyes, black and burning, looked the captain through and through.

"Another time—" said Murrell, scowling.

"Any time," answered Carrington indifferently.



CHAPTER XVI. THE PORTAL OF HOPE

"This—" the speaker was judge Price; "this is the place for me: They are a warm-hearted people, sir; a prosperous people, and a patriotic people with an unstinted love of country. A people full of rugged virtues engaged in carving a great state out of the indulgent bosom of Nature. I like the size of their whisky glasses; I like the stuff that goes into them; I despise a section that separates its gallons into too many glasses. Show me a community that does that, and I'll show you a community rapidly tending toward a low scale of living. I'd like to hang out my shingle here and practise law."

The judge and Mr. Mahaffy were camped in the woods between Boggs' and Raleigh. Betty had carried Hannibal off to spend the night at Belle Plain, Carrington had disappeared with Charley Norton; but the judge and Mahaffy had lingered in the meadow until the last refreshment booth struck its colors to the twilight, and they had not lingered in vain. The judge threw himself at full length on the ground, and Mahaffy dropped at his side. About them, in the ruddy glow of their camp-fire, rose the dark wall of the forest.

"I crave opportunity, Solomon—the indorsement of my own class. I feel that I shall have it here," resumed the judge pensively.

But Mahaffy was sad in his joy, sober in his incipientent drunkenness. The same handsome treatment which the judge commended, had been as freely tendered him, yet he saw the end of all such hospitality. This was the worm in the bud. The judge, however, was an eager idealist; he still dreamed of Utopia, he still believed in millenniums. Mahaffy didn't and couldn't. Memory was the scarecrow in the garden of his hopes—you could wear out your welcome anywhere. In the end the world reckoned your cost, and unless you were prepared to make some sort of return for its bounty, the cold shoulder came to be your portion instead of the warm handclasp.

"Hannibal has found friends among people of the first importance. I have made it my business to inquire into their standing, and I find that young lady is heiress to a cool half million. Think of that, Solomon—think of that! I never saw anything more beautiful than her manifestation of regard for my protege—"

"And you made it your business, Mr. Price, to do your very damnedest to ruin his chances," said Mahaffy, with sudden heat.

"I ruin his chances?—I, sir? I consider that I helped his chances immeasurably."

"All right, then, you helped his chances—only you didn't, Price!"

"Am I to understand, Solomon, that you regard my interest in the boy as harmful?" inquired the judge, in a tone of shocked surprise.

"I regard it as a calamity," said Mahaffy, with cruel candor.

"And how about you, Solomon?"

"Equally a calamity. Mr. Price, you don't seem able to grasp just what we look like!"

"The mind's the only measure of the man, Solomon. If anybody can talk to me and be unaware that they are conversing with a gentleman, all I can say is their experience has been as pitiable as their intelligence is meager. But it hurts me when you intimate that I stand in the way of the boy's opportunity."

"Price, what do you; suppose we look like—you and I?"

"In a general way, Solomon, I am conscious that our appeal is to the brain rather than the eye," answered the judge, with dignity.

"I reckon even you couldn't do a much lower trick than use the boy as a stepping-stone," pursued Mahaffy.

"I don't see how you have the heart to charge me with such a purpose—I don't indeed, Solomon." The judge spoke with deep feeling; he was really hurt.

"Well, you let the boy have his chance, and don't you stick in your broken oar," cried Mahaffy fiercely.

The judge rolled over on his back, and stared up at the heavens.

"This is a new aspect of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emancipated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from straying?" he at length demanded.

Mahaffy having spoken his mind, preserved a stony silence.

The judge got up and replenished the camp-fire, which had burnt low, then squatting before it, he peered into the flames.

"You'll not deny, Solomon, that Miss Malroy exhibited a real affection for Hannibal?" he began.

"Now don't you try to borrow money of her, Price," said Mahaffy, returning to the attack.

"Solomon—Solomon—how can you?"

"That'll be your next move. Now let her alone; let Hannibal have his luck as it comes to him."

"You seem to forget, sir, that I still bear the name of gentleman!" said the judge.

Mahaffy gave way to acid merriment.

"Well, see that you are not tempted to forget that," he observed.

"If I didn't know your sterling qualities, Solomon, and pay homage to 'em, I might be tempted to take offense," said the judge.

"It's like pouring water on a duck's back to talk to you, Price; nothing strikes in."

"On the contrary, I am at all times ready to listen to reason from any quarter, but I've studied this matter in its many-sided aspect. I won't say we might not do better in Memphis, but we must consider the boy. No; if I can find a vacant house in Raleigh, I wouldn't ask a finer spot in which to spend the afternoon of my life."

"Afternoon?" snapped Mahaffy irritably.

"That's right—carp—! But you can't relegate me! You can't shove me away from the portal of hope—metaphorically speaking, I'm on the stoop; it may be God's pleasure that I enter; there's a place for gray heads—and there's a respectable slice of life after the meridian is passed."

"Humph!" said Mahaffy.

"I've made my impression; I've been thrown with cultivated minds quick to recognize superiority; I've met with deference and consideration."

"Aren't you forgetting the boy?" inquired Mahaffy. "No, sir! I regard my obligations where he is concerned as a sacred trust to be administered in a lofty and impersonal manner. If his friends—if Miss Malroy, for instance—cares to make me the instrument of her benefactions, I'll not be disposed to stand on my dignity; but his education shall be my care. I'll make such a lawyer of him as America has not seen before! I don't ask you to accept my own opinion of my fitness to do this, but two gentlemen with whom I talked this evening—one of them was the justice of the peace—were pleased to say that they had never heard such illuminating comments on the criminal law. I quoted the Greeks and Romans to 'em, sir; I gave 'em the salient points on mediaeval law; and they were dumfounded and speechless. I reckon they'd never heard such an exposition of fundamental principles; I showed 'em the germ and I showed 'em fruition. Damn it, sir, they were overwhelmed by the array of facts I marshaled for 'em. They said they'd never met with such erudition—no more they had, for I boiled down thirty years of study into ten minutes of talk! I flogged 'em with facts, and then we drank—" The judge smacked his lips. "It is this free-handed hospitality I like; it's this that gives life its gala aspect."

He forgot former experiences; but without this kindly refusal of memory to perform its wonted functions, the world would have been a chill place indeed for Slocum Price. But Mahaffy, keen and anxious, with doubt in every glass he drained, a lurking devil to grin at him above the rim, could see only the end of their brief hour of welcome. This made the present moment as bitter as the last.

"I have a theory, Solomon, that I shall be handsomely supported by my new friends. They'll snatch at the opportunity."

"I see 'em snatching, Mr. Price," said Mahaffy grimly.

"That's right—go on and plant doubt in my heart if you can! You're as hopeless as the grave side!" cried the judge, a spasm of rage shaking him.

"The thing for us to do—you and I, Price—is to clear out of here," said Mahaffy.

"But what of the boy?"

"Leave him with his friends."

"How do you know Miss Malroy would be willing to assume his care? It's scandalous the way you leap at conclusions. No, Solomon, no—I won't shirk a single irksome responsibility," and the judge's voice shook with suppressed emotion. Mahaffy laughed. "There you go again, Solomon, with that indecent mirth of yours! Friendship aside, you grow more offensive every day." The judge paused and then resumed. "I understand there's a federal judgeship vacant here. The president—" Mr. Mahaffy gave him a furtive leer. "I tell you General Jackson was my friend—we were brothers, sir—I stood at his side on the glorious blood-wet field of New Orleans! You don't believe me—"

"Price, you've made more demands on my stock of credulity than any man I've ever known!"

The judge became somber-faced.

"Unparalleled misfortune overtook me—I stepped aside, but the world never waits; I was a cog discarded from the mechanism of society—" He was so pleased with the metaphor that he repeated it.

"Look here, Price, you talk as though you were a modern job; what's the matter anyhow?—have you got boils?"

The judge froze into stony silence. Well, Mahaffy could sneer—he would show him! This was the last ditch and he proposed to descend into it, it was something to be able to demand the final word of fate—but he instantly recalled that he had been playing at hide-and-seek with inevitable consequences for something like a quarter of a century; it had been a triumph merely to exist. Mahaffy having eased his conscience, rolled over and promptly went to sleep. Flat on his back, the judge stared up at the wide blue arch of the heavens and rehearsed those promises which in the last twenty years he had made and broken times without number. He planned no sweeping reforms, his system of morality being little more than a series of graceful compromises with himself. He must not get hopelessly in debt; he must not get helplessly drunk. Dealing candidly with his own soul in the silence, he presently came to the belief that this might be done without special hardship. Then suddenly the rusted name-plate on Hannibal's old rifle danced again before his burning eyes, and a bitter sense of hurt and loss struck through him. He saw himself as he was, a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, the utter travesty of all he should have been; he dropped his arm across his face.