"No, ma'am; he done soaked the label off one of Mr. Pegloe's whisky bottles and pasted it on the wall just as high as my chin, so's I can see it good, and he's learning me that-a-ways! Maybe you've seen the kind of bottle I mean—Pegloe's Mississippi Pilot: Pure Corn Whisky?" But Hannibal's bright little face fell. He was quick to see that the educational system devised by the judge did not impress Betty at all favorably. She drew him into her arms.

"You shall have my books—the books I learned to read out of when I was a little girl, Hannibal!"

"I like learning from the label pretty well," said Hannibal loyally.

"But you'll like the books better, dear, when you see them. I know just where they are, for I happened on them on a shelf in the library only the other day."

After they had found and examined the books and Hannibal had grudgingly admitted that they might possess certain points of advantage over the label, he and Betty went out for a walk. It was now late afternoon and the sun was sinking behind the wall of the forest that rose along the Arkansas coast. Their steps had led them to the terrace where they stood looking off into the west. It was here that Betty had said good-by to Bruce Carrington—it might have been months ago, and it was only days. She thought of Charley—Charley, with his youth and hope and high courage—unwittingly enough she had led him on to his death! A sob rose in her throat.

Hannibal looked up into her face. The memory of his own loss was never very long absent from his mind, and Miss Betty had been the victim of a similarly sinister tragedy. He recalled those first awful days of loneliness through which he had lived, when there was no Uncle Bob—soft-voiced, smiling and infinitely companionable.

"Why, Hannibal, you are crying—what about, dear?" asked Betty suddenly.

"No, ma'am; I ain't crying," said Hannibal stoutly, but his wet lashes gave the lie to his words.

"Are you homesick—do you wish to go back to the judge and Mr. Mahaffy?"

"No, ma'am—it ain't that—I was just thinking—"

"Thinking about what, dear?"

"About my Uncle Bob." The small face was very wistful.

"Oh—and you still miss him so much, Hannibal?"

"I bet I do—I reckon anybody who knew Uncle Bob would never get over missing him; they just couldn't, Miss Betty! The judge is mighty kind, and so is Mr. Mahaffy—they're awful kind, Miss Betty, and it seems like they get kinder all the time—but with Uncle Bob, when he liked you, he just laid himself out to let you know it!"

"That does make a great difference, doesn't it?" agreed Betty sadly, and two piteous tearful eyes were bent upon him.

"Don't you reckon if Uncle Bob is alive, like the judge says, and he's ever going to find me, he had ought to be here by now?" continued Hannibal anxiously.

"But it hasn't been such a great while, Hannibal; it's only that so much has happened to you. If he was very badly hurt it may have been weeks before he could travel; and then when he could, perhaps he went back to that tavern to try to learn what had become of you. But we may be quite certain he will never abandon his search until he has made every possible effort to find you, dear! That means he will sooner or later come to west Tennessee, for there will always be the hope that you have found your way here."

"Sometimes I get mighty tired waiting, Miss Betty," confessed the boy. "Seems like I just couldn't wait no longer." He sighed gently, and then his face cleared. "You reckon he'll come most any time, don't you, Miss Betty?"

"Yes, Hannibal; any day or hour!"

"Whoop!" muttered Hannibal softly under his breath. Presently he asked: "Where does that branch take you to?" He nodded toward the bayou at the foot of the terraced bluff.

"It empties into the river," answered Betty.

Hannibal saw a small skiff beached among the cottonwoods that grew along the water's edge and his eyes lighted up instantly. He had a juvenile passion for boats.

"Why, you got a boat, ain't you, Miss Betty?" This was a charming and an important discovery.

"Would you like to go down to it?" inquired Betty.

"'Deed I would! Does she leak any, Miss Betty?"

"I don't know about that. Do boats usually leak, Hannibal?"

"Why, you ain't ever been out rowing in her, Miss Betty, have you?—and there ain't no better fun than rowing a boat!" They had started down the path.

"I used to think that, too, Hannibal; how do you suppose it is that when people grow up they forget all about the really nice things they might do?"

"What use is she if you don't go rowing in her?" persisted Hannibal.

"Oh, but it is used. Mr. Tom uses it in crossing to the other side where they are clearing land for cotton. It saves him a long walk or ride about the head of the bayou."

"Like I should take you out in her, Miss Betty?" demanded Hannibal with palpitating anxiety.

They had entered the scattering timber when Betty paused suddenly with a startled exclamation, and Hannibal felt her fingers close convulsively about his. The sound she had heard might have been only the rustling of the wind among the branches overhead in that shadowy silence, but Betty's nerves, the placid nerves of youth and perfect health, were shattered.

"Didn't you hear something, Hannibal?" she whispered fearfully.

For answer Hannibal pointed mysteriously, and glancing in the direction he indicated, Betty saw a woman advancing along the path toward them. The look of alarm slowly died out of his eyes.

"I think it's the overseer's niece," she told Hannibal, and they kept on toward the boat.

The girl came rapidly up the path, which closely followed the irregular line of the shore in its windings. Once she was seen to stop and glance back over her shoulder, her attitude intent and listening, then she hurried forward again. Just by the boat the three met.

"Good evening!" said Betty pleasantly.

The girl made no reply to this; she merely regarded Betty with a fixed stare. At length she broke silence abruptly.

"I got something I want to say to you—you know who I am, I reckon?" She was a girl of about Betty's own age, with a certain dark, sullen beauty and that physical attraction which Tom, in spite of his vexed mood, had taken note of earlier in the day.

"You are Bess Hicks," said Betty.

"Make the boy go back toward the house a spell—I got something I want to say to you." Betty hesitated. She was offended by the girl's manner, which was as rude as her speech. "I ain't going to hurt you—you needn't be afraid of me, I got something important to say—send him off, I tell you; there ain't no time to lose!" The girl stamped her foot impatiently.

Betty made a sign to Hannibal and he passed slowly back along the path. He went unwillingly, and he kept his head turned that he might see what was done, even if he were not to hear what was said.

"That will do, Hannibal—wait there—don't go any farther!" Betty called after him when he had reached a point sufficiently distant to be out of hearing of a conversation carried on in an ordinary tone. "Now, what is it? Speak quickly if you have anything to tell me!"

"I got a heap to say," answered the girl with a scowl. Her manner was still fierce and repellent, and she gave Betty a certain jealous regard out of her black eyes which the latter was at a loss to explain. "Where's Mr. Tom?" she demanded.

"Tom? Why, about the place, I suppose—in his office, perhaps." So it had to do with Tom.... Betty felt sudden disgust with the situation.

"No, he ain't about the place, either! He done struck out for Memphis two hours after sun-up, and what's more, he ain't coming back here to-night—" There was a moment of silence. The girl looked about apprehensively. She continued, fixing her black eyes on Betty: "You're here alone at Belle Plain—you know what happened when Mr. Tom started for Memphis last time? I reckon you-all ain't forgot that!"

Betty felt a pallor steal over her face. She rested a hand that shook on the trunk of a tree to steady herself. The girl laughed shortly.

"Don't be so scared; I reckon Belle Plain's as good as his if anything happened to you?"

By a great effort Betty gained a measure of control over herself. She took a step nearer and looked the girl steadily in the face.

"Perhaps you will stop this sort of talk, and tell me what is going to happen to me—if you know?" she said quietly.

"Why do you reckon Mr. Norton was shot? I can tell you why—it was all along of you—that was why!" The girl's furtive glance, which searched and watched the gathering shadows, came back as it always did to Betty's pale face. "You ain't no safer than he was, I tell you!" and she sucked in her breath sharply between her full red lips.

"What do you mean?" faltered Betty.

"Do you reckon you're safe here in the big house alone? Why do you reckon Mr. Tom cleared out for Memphis? It was because he couldn't be around and have anything happen to you—that was why!" and the girl sank her voice to a whisper. "You quit Belle Plain now—to-night—just as soon as you can!"

"This is absurd—you are trying to frighten me!"

"Did they stop with trying to frighten Charley Norton?" demanded Bess with harsh insistence.

Whatever the promptings that inspired this warning, they plainly had nothing to do with either liking or sympathy. Her dominating emotion seemed to be a sullen sort of resentment which lit up her glance with a dull fire; yet her feelings were so clearly and so keenly personal that Betty understood the motive that had brought her there. The explanation, she found, left her wondering just where and how her own fate was linked with that of this poor white.

"You have been waiting some time to see me?" she asked.

"Ever since along about noon."

"You were afraid to come to the house?"

"I didn't want to be seen there."

"And yet you knew I was alone."

"Alone—but how do you know who's watching the place?"

"Do you think there was reason to be afraid of that?" asked Betty.

Again the girl stamped her foot with angry impatience.

"You're just wastin' time—just foolin' it away—and you ain't got none to spare!"

"You must tell me what I have to fear—I must know more or I shall stay just where I am!"

"Well, then, stay!" The girl turned away, and then as quickly turned back and faced Betty once more. "I reckon he'd kill me if he knew—I reckon I've earned that already—"

"Of whom are you speaking?"

"He'll have you away from here to-night!"

"He?... who?... and what if I refuse to go?"

"Did they ask Charley Norton whether he wanted to live or die?" came the sinister question.

A shiver passed through Betty. She was seeing it all again—Charley as he groped among the graves with the hand of death heavy upon him.

A moment later she was alone. The girl had disappeared. There was only the shifting shadows as the wind tossed the branches of the trees, and the bands of golden light that slanted along the empty path. The fear of the unknown leaped up afresh in Betty's soul, in an instant her flying feet had borne her to the boy's side.

"Come—come quick, Hannibal!" she gasped out, and seized his hand.

"What is it, Miss Betty? What's the matter?" asked Hannibal as they fled panting up the terraces.

"I don't know—only we must get away from here just as soon as we can!" Then, seeing the look of alarm on the child's face, she added more quietly, "Don't be frightened, dear, only we must go away from Belle Plain at once." But where they were to go, she had not considered.

Reaching the house, they stole up to Betty's room. Her well-filled purse was the important thing; that, together with some necessary clothing, went into a small hand-bag.

"You must carry this, Hannibal; if any one sees us leave the house they'll think it something you are taking away," she explained. Hannibal nodded understandingly.

"Don't you trust your niggers, Miss Betty?" he whispered as they went from the room.

"I only trust you, dear!"

"What makes you go? Was it something that woman told you? Are they coming after us, Miss Betty? Is it Captain Murrell?"

"Captain Murrell?" There was less of mystery now, but more of terror, and her hand stole up to her heart, and, white and slim, rested against the black fabric of her dress.

"Don't you be scared, Miss Betty!" said Hannibal.

They went silently from the house and again crossed the lawn to the terrace. Under the leafy arch which canopied them there was already the deep purple of twilight.

"Do you reckon it were Captain Murrell shot Mr. Norton, Miss Betty?" asked Hannibal in a shuddering whisper.

"Hush—Oh, hush, Hannibal! It is too awful to even speak of—" and, sobbing and half hysterical, she covered her face with her hands.

"But where are we going, Miss Betty?" asked the boy.

"I don't know, dear!" she had an agonizing sense of the night's approach and of her own utter helplessness.

"I'll tell you what, Miss Betty, let's go to the judge and Mr. Mahaffy!" said Hannibal.

"Judge Price?" She had not thought of him as a possible protector.

"Why, Miss Betty, ain't I told you he ain't afraid of nothing? We could walk to Raleigh easy if you don't want your niggers to hook up a team for you."

Betty suddenly remembered the carriage which had taken the judge into town; she was sure it had not yet returned.

"We will go to the judge, Hannibal! George, who drove him into Raleigh, has not come back; if we hurry we may meet him on the road."

Screened by the thick shadows, they passed up the path that edged the bayou; at the head of the inlet they entered a clearing, and crossing this they came to the corn-field which lay between the house and the highroad. Following one of the shock rows they hurried to the mouth of the lane.

"Hannibal, I don't want to tell the judge why I am leaving Belle Plain—about the woman, I mean," said Betty.

"You reckon they'd kill her, don't you, Miss Betty, if they knew what she'd done?" speculated the boy. It occurred to him that an adequate explanation of their flight would require preparation, since the judge was at all times singularly alive to the slightest discrepancy of statement. They had issued from the cornfield now and were going along the road toward Raleigh. Suddenly Betty paused.

"Hark!" she whispered.

"It were nothing, Miss Betty," said Hannibal reassuringly, and they hurried forward again. In the utter stillness through which they moved Betty heard the beating of her own heart, and the soft, and all but inaudible patter of the boy's bare feet on the warm dust of the road. Vague forms that resolved themselves into trees and bushes seemed to creep toward them out of the night's black uncertainty. Once more Betty paused.

"It were nothing, Miss Betty," said Hannibal as before, and he returned to his consideration of the judge. He sensed something of that intellectual nimbleness which his patron's physical make-up in nowise suggested, since his face was a mask that usually left one in doubt as to just how much of what he heard succeeded in making its impression on him; but the boy knew that Slocum Price's blind side was a shelterless exposure.

"You don't think the carriage could have passed us while we were crossing the corn-field?" said Betty.

"No, I reckon we couldn't a-missed hearing it," answered Hannibal. He had scarcely spoken when they caught the rattle of wheels and the beat of hoofs. These sounds swept nearer and nearer, and then the darkness disgorged the Belle Plain team and carriage.

"George!" cried Betty, a world of relief in her tones.

"Whoa, you!" and George reined in his horses with a jerk. "Who's dar?" he asked, bending forward on the box as he sought to pierce the darkness with his glance.

"George—"

"Oh, it you, Missy?"

"Yes, I wish you to drive me into Raleigh," said Betty, and she and Hannibal entered the carriage.

"All right, Missy. Yo'-all ready fo' me to go along out o' here?"

"Yes—drive fast, George!" urged Betty.

"It's right dark fo' fas' drivin' Missy, with the road jes' aimin' fo' to bus' yo' springs with chuckholes!" He had turned his horses' heads in the direction of Raleigh while he was speaking. "It's scandalous black in these heah woods, Missy I 'clar' I never seen it no blacker!"

The carriage swung forward for perhaps a hundred yards, then suddenly the horses came to a dead stop.

"Go along on, dar!" cried George, and struck them with his whip, but the horses only reared and plunged.

"Hold on, nigger!" said a rough voice out of the darkness.

"What yo' doin'?" the coachman gasped. "Don' yo' know dis de Belle Plain carriage? Take yo' han's offen to dem hosses' bits!"

Two men stepped to the side of the carriage.

"Show your light, Bunker," said the same rough voice that had spoken before. Instantly a hooded lantern was uncovered, and Hannibal uttered a cry of terror. He was looking into the face of Slosson, the tavern-keeper.



CHAPTER XXVII. PRISONERS

In the face of Betty's indignant protest Slosson and the man named Bunker climbed into the carriage.

"Don't you be scared, ma'am," said the tavernkeeper, who smelt strongly of whisky. "I wouldn't lift my hand ag'in no good looking female except in kindness."

"How dare you stop my carriage?" cried Betty, with a very genuine anger which for the moment dominated all her other emotions. She struggled to her feet, but Slosson put out a heavy hand and thrust her back.

"There now," he urged soothingly. "Why make a fuss? We ain't going to harm you; we wouldn't for no sum of money. Drive on, Jim—drive like hell!" This last was addressed to the man who had taken George's place on the box, where a fourth member of Slosson's band had forced the coachman down into the narrow space between the seat and dashboard, and was holding a pistol to his head while he sternly enjoined silence.

With a word to the horses Jim swung about and the carriage rolled off through the night at a breakneck' pace. Betty's shaking hands drew Hannibal closer to her side as she felt the surge of her terrors rise within her. Who were these men—where could they be taking her—and for what purpose? The events of the past weeks linked themselves in tragic sequence in her mind.

What was it she had to fear? Was it Tom who had inspired Norton's murder? Was it Tom for whom these men were acting? Tom who would profit greatly by her disappearance or death.

They swept past the entrance at Belle Plain, past a break in the wall of the forest where the pale light of stars showed Betty the corn-field she and Hannibal had but lately crossed, and then on into pitchy darkness again. She clung to the desperate hope that they might meet some one on the road, when she could cry out and give the alarm. She held herself in readiness for this, but there was only the steady pounding of the big bays as Jim with voice and whip urged them forward. At last he abruptly checked them, and Bunker and Slosson sprang from their seats.

"Get down, ma'am!" said the latter.

"Where are you taking me?" asked Betty, in a voice that shook in spite of her efforts to control it.

"You must hurry, ma'am," urged Slosson impatiently.

"I won't move until I know where you intend taking me!" said Betty, "If I am to die—"

Mr. Slosson laughed loudly and indulgently.

"You ain't. If you don't want to walk, I'm man enough fo' to tote you. We ain't far to go, and I've tackled jobs I'd a heap less heart fo' in my time," he concluded gallantly. From the opposite side of the carriage Bunker swore nervously. He desired to know if they were to stand there talking all night. "Shut your filthy mouth, Bunker, and see you keep tight hold of that young rip-staver," said Slosson. "He's a perfect eel—I've had dealings with him afore!"

"You tried to kill my Uncle Bob—at the tavern, you and Captain Murrell. I heard you, and I seen you drag him to the river!" cried Hannibal.

Slosson gave a start of astonishment at this.

"Why, ain't he hateful?" he exclaimed aghast. "See here, young feller, that's no kind of a way fo' you to talk to a man who has riz his ten children!"

Again Bunker swore, while Jim told Slosson to make haste. This popular clamor served to recall the tavernkeeper to a sense of duty.

"Ma'am, like I should tote you, or will you walk?" he inquired, and reaching out his hand took hold of Betty.

"I'll walk," said the girl quickly, shrinking from the contact.

"Keep close at my heels. Bunker, you tuck along after her with the boy."

"What about this nigger?" asked the fourth man.

"Fetch him along with us," said Slosson. They turned from the road while he was speaking and entered a narrow path that led off through the woods, apparently in the direction of the river. A moment later Betty heard the carriage drive away. They went onward in silence for a little time, then Slosson spoke over his shoulder.

"Yes, ma'am, I've riz ten children but none of 'em was like him—I trained 'em up to the minute!" Mr. Slosson seemed to have passed completely under the spell of his domestic recollections, for he continued with just a touch of reminiscent sadness in his tone. "There was all told four Mrs. Slossons: two of 'em was South Carolinians, one was from Georgia, and the last was a widow lady out of east Tennessee. She'd buried three husbands and I figured we could start perfectly even."

The intrinsic fairness of this start made its strong appeal. Mr. Slosson dwelt upon it with satisfaction. "She had three to her credit, I had three to mine; neither could crow none over the other."

As they stumbled forward through the thick obscurity he continued his personal revelations, the present enterprise having roused whatever there was of sentiment slumbering in his soul. At last they came out on a wide bayou; a white mist hung above it, and on the low shore leaf and branch were dripping with the night dews. Keeping close to the water's edge Slosson led the way to a point where a skiff was drawn up on the bank.

"Step in, ma'am," he said, when he had launched it.

"I will go no farther!" said Betty in desperation. She felt an overmastering fear, the full horror of the unknown lay hold of her, and she gave a piercing cry for help. Slosson swung about on his heel and seized her. For a moment she struggled to escape, but the man's big hands pinioned her.

"No more of that!" he warned, then he recovered himself and laughed. "You could yell till you was black in the face, ma'am, and there'd be no one to hear you."

"Where are you taking me?" and Betty's voice faltered between the sudden sobs that choked her.

"Just across to George Hicks's."

"For what purpose?"

"You'll know in plenty of time." And Slosson leered at her through the darkness.

"Hannibal is to go with me?" asked Betty tremulously.

"Sure!" agreed Slosson affably. "Your nigger, too—quite a party."

Betty stepped into the skiff. She felt her hopes quicken—she was thinking of Bess; whatever the girl's motives, she had wished her to escape. She would wish it now more than ever since the very thing she had striven to prevent had happened. Slosson seated himself and took up the oars, Bunker followed with Hannibal and they pushed off. No word was spoken until they disembarked on the opposite shore, when Slosson addressed Bunker. "I reckon I can manage that young rip-staver, you go back after Sherrod and the nigger," he said.

He conducted his captives up the bank and they entered a clearing. Looking across this Betty saw where a cabin window framed a single square of light. They advanced toward this and presently the dark outline of the cabin itself became distinguishable. A moment later Slosson paused, a door yielded to his hand, and Betty and the boy were thrust into the room where Murrell had held his conference with Fentress and Ware. The two women were now its only occupants and the mother, gross and shapeless, turned an expressionless face on the intruders; but the daughter shrank into the shadow, her burning glance fixed on Betty.

"Here's yo' guests, old lady!" said Mr. Slosson. Mrs. Hicks rose from the three-legged stool on which she was sitting.

"Hand me the candle, Bess," she ordered.

At one side of the room was a steep flight of stairs which gave access to the loft overhead. Mrs. Hicks, by a gesture, signified that Betty and Hannibal were to ascend these stairs; they did so and found themselves on a narrow landing inclosed by a partition of rough planks, this partition was pierced by a low door. Mrs. Hicks, who had followed close at their heels, handed the candle to Betty.

"In yonder!" she said briefly, nodding toward the door.

"Wait!" cried Betty in a whisper.

"No," said the woman with an almost masculine surliness of tone. "I got nothing to say." She pushed them into the attic, and, closing the door, fastened it with a stout wooden bar.

Beyond that door, which seemed to have closed on every hope, Betty held the tallow dip aloft, and by its uncertain and flickering light surveyed her prison. The briefest glance sufficed. The room contained two shakedown beds and a stool, there was a window in the gable, but a piece of heavy plank was spiked before it.

"Miss Betty, don't you be scared," whispered Hannibal. "When the judge hears we're gone, him and Mr. Mahaffy will try to find us. They'll go right off to Belle Plain—the judge is always wanting to do that, only Mr. Mahaffy never lets him but now he won't be able to stop him."

"Oh, Hannibal, Hannibal, what can he do there—what can any one do there?" And a dead pallor overspread the girl's face. To speak of the blind groping of her friends but served to fix the horror of their situation in her mind.

"I don't know, Miss Betty, but the judge is always thinking of things to do; seems like they was mostly things no one else would ever think of."

Betty had placed the candle on the stool and seated herself on one of the beds. There was the murmur of voices in the room below; she wondered if her fate was under consideration and what that fate was to be. Hannibal, who had been examining the window, returned to her side.

"Miss Betty, if we could just get out of this loft we could steal their skiff and row down to the river; I reckon they got just the one boat; the only way they could get to us would be to swim out, and if they done that we could pound 'em over the head with the oars the least little thing sinks you when you're in the water." But this murderous fancy of his failed to interest Betty.

Presently they heard Sherrod and Bunker come up from the shore with George. Slosson joined them and there was a brief discussion, then an interval of silence, and the sound of voices again as the three white men moved back across the field in the direction of the bayou. There succeeded a period of utter stillness, both in the cabin and in the clearing, a somber hush that plunged Betty yet deeper in despair. Wild thoughts assailed her, thoughts against which she struggled with all the strength of her will.

In that hour of stress Hannibal was sustained by his faith in the judge. He saw his patron's powerful and picturesque intelligence applied to solving the mystery of their disappearance from Belle Plain; it was inconceivable that this could prove otherwise than disastrous to Mr. Slosson and he endeavored to share the confidence he was feeling with Betty, but there was something so forced and unnatural in the girl's voice and manner when she discussed his conjectures that he quickly fell into an awed silence. At last, and it must have been some time after midnight, troubled slumbers claimed him. No moment of forgetfulness came to Betty. She was waiting for what—she did not know! The candle burnt lower and lower and finally went out and she was left in darkness, but again she was conscious of sounds from the room below. At first it was only a word or a sentence, then the guarded speech became a steady monotone that ran deep into the night; eventually this ceased and Betty fancied she heard sobs.

At length points of light began to show through chinks in the logs. Hannibal roused and sat up, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands.

"Wasn't you able to sleep none?" he inquired. Betty shook her head. He looked at her with an expression of troubled concern. "How soon do you reckon the judge will know?" he asked.

"Very soon now, dear." Hannibal was greatly consoled by this opinion.

"Miss Betty, he will love to find us—"

"Hark! What was that?" for Betty had caught the distant splash of oars. Hannibal found a chink in the logs through which by dint of much squinting he secured a partial view of the bayou. "They're fetching up a keel boat to the shore, Miss Betty—it's a whooper!" he announced. Betty's heart sank, she never doubted the purpose for which that boat was brought into the bayou, or that it nearly concerned herself.

Half an hour later Mrs. Hicks appeared with their breakfast. It was in vain that Betty attempted to engage her in conversation, either she cherished some personal feeling of dislike for her prisoner, or else the situation in which she herself was placed had little to recommend it, even to her dull mind, and her dissatisfaction was expressed in her attitude toward the girl.

Betty passed the long hours of morning in dreary speculation concerning what was happening at Belle Plain. In the end she realized that the day could go by and her absence occasion no alarm; Steve might reasonably suppose George had driven her into Raleigh or to the Bowens' and that she had kept the carriage. Finally all her hope centered on Judge Price. He would expect Hannibal during the morning, perhaps when the boy did not arrive he would be tempted to go out to Belle Plain to discover the reason of his nonappearance. She wondered what theories would offer themselves to his ingenious mind, for she sensed something of that indomitable energy which in the face of rebuffs and laughter carried him into the thick of every sensation.

At noon, Mrs. Hicks, as sullen as in the morning, brought them their dinner. She had scarcely quitted the loft when a shrill whistle pierced the silence that hung above the clearing. It was twice repeated, and the two women were heard to go from the cabin. Perhaps half an hour elapsed, then a step became audible on the packed earth of the dooryard; some one entered the room below and began to ascend the narrow stairs, and Betty's fingers closed convulsively about Hannibal's. This was neither Mrs. Hicks nor her daughter, nor Slosson with his clumsy shuffle. There was a brief pause when the landing was reached, but it was only momentary; a hand lifted the bar, the door was thrown open, and its space framed the figure of a man. It was John Murrell.

Standing there he regarded Betty in silence, but a deep-seated fire glowed in his sunken eyes. The sense of possession was raging through him, his temples throbbed, a fever stirred his blood. Love, such as it was, he undoubtedly felt for her and even his giant project with all its monstrous ramifications was lost sight of for the moment. She was the inspiration for it all, the goal and reward toward which he struggled.

"Betty!" the single word fell softly from his lips. He stepped into the room, closing the door as he did so.

The girl's eyes were dilating with a mute horror, for by some swift intuitive process of the mind, which asked nothing of the logic of events, but dealt only with conclusions, Murrell stood revealed as Norton's murderer. Perhaps he read her thoughts, but he had lived in his degenerate ambitions until the common judgments or the understanding of them no longer existed for him. That Betty had loved Norton seemed inconsequential even; it was a memory to be swept away by the force of his greater passion. So he watched her smilingly, but back of the smile was the menace of unleashed impulse.

"Can't you find some word of welcome for me, Betty?" he asked at length, still softly, still with something of entreaty in his tone.

"Then it was you—not Tom—who had me brought here!" She could have thanked God had it been Tom, whose hate was not to be feared as she feared this man's love.

"Tom—no!" and Murrell laughed. "You didn't think I'd give you up? I am standing with a halter, about my neck, and all for your sake—who'd risk as much for love of you?" he seemed to expand with savage pride that this was so, and took a step toward her.

"Don't come near me!" cried Betty. Her eyes blazed, and she looked at him with' loathing.

"You'll learn to be kinder," he exulted. "You wouldn't see me at Belle Plain; what was left for me but to have you brought here?" While Murrell was speaking, the signal that had told of his own presence on the opposite shore of the bayou was heard again. This served to arrest his attention. A look of uncertainty passed over his face, then he made an impatient gesture as if he dismissed some thought that had forced itself upon him, and turned to Betty.

"You don't ask what my purpose is where you are concerned; have you no curiosity on that score?" She endeavored to meet his glance with a glance as resolute, then her eyes sought the boy's upturned face. "I am going to send you down river, Betty. Later I shall join you in New Orleans, and when I leave the country you shall go with me—"

"Never!" gasped Betty.

"As my wife, or however you choose to call it. I'll teach you what a man's love is like," he boasted, and extended his hand. Betty shrank from him, and his hand fell at his side. He looked at her steadily out of his deep-sunk eyes in which blazed the fires of his passion, and as he looked, her face paled and flushed by turns. "You may learn to be kind to me, Betty," he said. "You may find it will be worth your while." Betty made no answer, she only gathered Hannibal closer to her side. "Why not accept what I have to offer, Betty?" again he went nearer her, and again she shrank from him, but the madness of his mood was in the ascendant. He seized her and drew her to him. She struggled to free herself, but his fingers tightened about hers.

"Let me go!" she panted. He laughed his cool laugh of triumph.

"Let you go—ask me anything but that, Betty! Have you no reward for patience such as mine? A whole summer has passed since I saw you first—"

There was the noisy shuffling of feet on the stairs, and releasing Betty, Murrell swung about on his heel and faced the door. It was pushed open an inch at a time by a not too confident hand and Mr. Slosson thus guardedly presented himself to the eye of his chief, whom he beckoned from the room.

"Well?" said Murrell, when they stood together on the landing.

"Just come across to the keel boat!" and Slosson led the way down the stairs and from the house.

"Damn you, Joe; you might have waited!" observed the outlaw. Slosson gave him a hardened grin. They crossed the clearing and boarded the keel boat which rested against the bank. As they did so, the cabin in the stern gave up a shattered presence in the shape of Tom Ware. Murrell started violently. "I thought you were hanging out in Memphis, Tom?" he said, and his brow darkened as, sinister and forbidding, he stepped closer to the planter. Ware did not answer at once, but looked at Murrell out of heavy bloodshot eyes, his face pinched and ghastly. At last he said, speaking with visible effort,

"I stayed in Memphis until five o'clock this morning."

"Damn your early hours!" roared Murrell. "What are you doing here? I suppose you've been showing that dead face of yours about the neighborhood—why didn't you stay at Belle Plain since you couldn't keep away?"

"I haven't been near Belle Plain, I came here instead. How am I going to meet people and answer questions?" His teeth were chattering. "Is it known she's missing?" he added.

"Hicks raised the alarm the first thing this morning, according to the instructions I'd given him."

"Yes?" gasped Ware. He was dripping from every pore and the sickly color came and went on his unshaven cheeks. Murrell dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"You haven't been at Belle Plain, you say, but has any one seen you on the road this morning?"

"No one, John," cried Ware, panting between each word. There was a moment's pause and Ware spoke again. "What are they doing at Belle Plain?" he demanded in a whisper. Murrell's lips curled.

"I understand there is talk of suicide," he said.

"Good!" cried Ware.

"They are dragging the bayou down below the house. It looks as though you were going to reap the rewards of the excellent management you have given her estate. They have been trying to find you in Memphis, so the sooner you show yourself the better," he concluded significantly.

"You are sure you have her safe, John, no chance of discovery? For God's sake, get her away from here as soon as you can, it's an awful risk you run!"

"She'll be sent down river to-night," said Murrell.

"Captain," began Slosson who up to this had taken no part in the conversation. "When are you going to cross to t'other side of the bayou?"

"Soon," replied Murrell. Slosson laughed.

"I didn't know but you'd clean forgot the Clan's business. I want to ask another question—but first I want to say that no one thinks higher or more frequent of the ladies than just me, I'm genuinely fond of 'em and I've never lifted my hand ag'in' 'em except in kindness." Mr. Slosson looked at Ware with an exceedingly virtuous expression of countenance. He continued. "Yo' orders are that we're to slip out of this a little afore midnight, but suppose there's a hitch—here's the lady knowing what she knows and here's the boy knowing what he knows."

"There can be no hitch," rasped out Murrell arrogantly.

"I never knew a speculation that couldn't go wrong; and by rights we should have got away last night."

"Well, whose fault is it you didn't?" demanded Murrell.

"In a manner it were mine, but the ark got on a sandbank as we were fetching it in and it took us the whole damn night to get clear."

"Well?" prompted Murrell, with a sullen frown.

"Suppose they get shut of that notion of theirs that the lady's done drowned herself, suppose they take to watching the river? Or suppose the whole damn bottom drops out of this deal? What then? Why, I'll tell you what then—the lady, good looking as she is, knows enough to make west Tennessee mighty onhealthy for some of us. I say suppose it's a flash in the pan and you have to crowd the distance in between you and this part of the world, you can't tell me you'll have any use for her then." Slosson paused impressively. "And here's Mr. Ware feeling bad, feeling like hell," he resumed. "Him and me don't want to be left in no trap with you gone God only knows where."

"I'll send a man to take charge of the keel boat. I can't risk any more of your bungling, Joe."

"That's all right, but you don't answer my question," persisted Slosson, with admirable tenacity of purpose.

"What is your question, Joe?"

"A lot can happen between this and midnight—"

"If things go wrong with us there'll be a blaze at the head of the bayou; does that satisfy you?"

"And what then?"

Murrell hesitated.

"What about the girl?" insisted Slosson, dragging him back to the point at issue between them. "As a man I wouldn't lift my hand ag'in' no good looking woman except like I said—in kindness, but she can't be turned loose, she knows too much. What's the word, Captain—you say it!" he urged. He made a gesture of appeal to Ware.

"Look for the light; better still, look for the man I'll send." And with this Murrell would have turned away, but Slosson detained him.

"Who'll he be?"

"Some fellow who knows the river."

"And if it's the light?" asked the tavern-keeper in a hoarse undertone. Again he looked toward Ware, who, dry-lipped and ashen, was regarding him steadfastly. Glance met glance, for a brief instant they looked deep into each other's eyes and then the hand Slosson had rested on Murrell's shoulder dropped at his side.



CHAPTER XXVIII. THE JUDGE MEETS THE SITUATION

The judge's and Mr. Mahaffy's celebration of the former's rehabilitated credit had occupied the shank of the evening, the small hours of the night, and that part of the succeeding day which the southwest described as soon in the morning; and as the stone jug, in which were garnered the spoils of the highly confidential but entirely misleading conversation which the judge had held with Mr. Pegloe after his return from Belle Plain, lost in weight, it might have been observed that he and Mr. Mahaffy seemed to gain in that nice sense of equity which should form the basis of all human relations. The judge watched Mr. Mahaffy, and Mr. Mahaffy watched the judge, each trustfully placing the regulation of his private conduct in the hands of his friend, as the one most likely to be affected by the rectitude of his acts.

Probably so extensive a consumption of Mr. Pegloe's corn whisky had never been accomplished with greater highmindedness. They honorably split the last glass, the judge scorning to set up any technical claim to it as his exclusive property; then he stared at Mahaffy, while Mahaffy, dark-visaged and forbidding, stared back at him.

The judge sighed deeply. He took up the jug and inverted it. A stray drop or so fell languidly into his glass.

"Try squeezing it, Price," said Mahaffy.

The judge shook the jug, it gave forth an empty sound, and he sighed again; he attempted to peer into it, closing one watery eye as he tilted it toward the light.

"I wonder no Yankee has ever thought to invent a jug with a glass bottom," he observed.

"What for?" asked Mahaffy.

"You astonish me, Solomon," exclaimed the judge. "Coming as you do from that section which invented the wooden nutmeg, and an eight-day clock that has been known to run as much as four or five hours at a stretch. I am aware the Yankees are an ingenious people; I wonder none of 'em ever thought of a jug with a glass bottom, so that when a body holds it up to the light he can see at a glance whether it is empty or not. Do you reckon Pegloe has sufficient confidence to fill the jug again for us?"

But Mahaffy's expression indicated no great confidence in Mr. Pegloe's confidence.

"Credit," began the judge, "is proverbially shy; still it may sometimes be increased, like the muscles of the body and the mental faculties, by judicious use. I've always regarded Pegloe as a cheap mind. I hope I have done him an injustice." He put on his hat, and tucking the jug under his arm, went from the house.

Ten or fifteen minutes elapsed. Mahaffy considered this a good sign, it didn't take long to say no, he reflected. Another ten or fifteen elapsed. Mahaffy lost heart. Then there came a hasty step beyond the door, it was thrown violently open, and the judge precipitated himself into the room. A glance showed Mahaffy that he was laboring under intense excitement.

"Solomon, I bring shocking news. God knows what the next few hours may reveal!" cried the judge, mopping his brow. "Miss Malroy has disappeared from Belle Plain, and Hannibal has gone with her!"

"Where have they gone?" asked Mahaffy, and his long jaw dropped.

"Would to God I had an answer ready for that question, Solomon!" answered the judge, with a melancholy shake of the head. He gazed down on his friend with an air of large tolerance. "I am going to Belle Plain, but you are too drunk. Sleep it off, Solomon, and join me when your brain is clear and your legs steady."

Mahaffy jerked out an oath, and lifting himself off his chair, stood erect. He snatched up his hat.

"Stuff your pistols into your pockets, and come on, Price!" he said, and stalked toward the door.

He flitted up the street, and the judge puffed and panted in his wake. They gained the edge of the village without speech.

"There is mystery and rascality here!" said the judge.

"What do you know, Price, and where did you hear this?" Mahaffy shot the question back over his shoulder.

"At Pegloe's, the Belle Plain overseer had just fetched the news into town."

Again they were silent, all their energies being absorbed by the physical exertion they were making. The road danced before their burning eyes, it seemed to be uncoiling itself serpentwise with hideous undulations. Mr. Mahaffy was conscious that the judge, of whom he caught a blurred vision now at his right side, now at his left, was laboring painfully in the heat and dust, the breath whistling from between his parched lips.

"You're just ripe for apoplexy, Price!" he snarled, moderating his pace.

"Go on," said the judge, with stolid resolution.

Two miles out of the village they came to a roadside spring, here they paused for an instant. Mahaffy scooped up handfuls of the clear water and sucked it down greedily. The judge dropped on his stomach and buried his face in the tiny pool, gulping up great thirsty swallows. After a long breathless instant he stood erect, with drops of moisture clinging to his nose and eyebrows. Mahaffy was a dozen paces down the road, hurrying forward again with relentless vigor. The judge shuffled after him. The tracks they left in the dust crossed and re-crossed the road, but presently the slanting lines of their advance straightened, the judge gained and held a fixed place at Mahaffy's right, a step or so in the rear. His oppulent fancy began to deal with the situation.

"If anything happens to the child, the man responsible for it would better never been born—I'll pursue him with undiminished energy from this moment forth!" he panted.

"What could happen to him, Price?" asked Mahaffy.

"God knows, poor little lad!"

"Will you shut up!" cried Mahaffy savagely.

"Solomon!"

"Why do you go building on that idea? Why should any one harm him—what earthly purpose—"

"I tell you, Solomon, we are the pivotal point in a vast circle of crime. This is a blow at me—this is revenge, sir, neither more nor less! They have struck at me through the boy, it is as plain as day."

"What did the overseer say?"

"Just that they found Miss Malroy gone from Belle Plain this morning, and the boy with her."

"This is like you, Price! How do you know they haven't spent the night at some neighbor's?"

"The nearest neighbor is five or six miles distant. Miss Malroy and Hannibal were seen along about dusk in the grounds at Belle Plain, do you mean to tell me you consider it likely that they set out on foot at that hour, and without a word to any one, to make a visit?" inquired the judge; but Mahaffy did not contend for this point.

"What are you going to do first, Price?"

"Have a look over the grounds, and talk with the slaves."

"Where's the brother—wasn't he at Belle Plain last night?"

"It seems he went to Memphis yesterday."

They plodded forward in silence; now and again they were passed by some man on horseback whose destination was the same as their own, and then at last they caught sight of Belle Plain in its grove of trees.

All work on the plantation had stopped, and the hundreds of slaves—men, women and children—were gathered about the house. Among these moved the members of the dominant race. The judge would have attached himself to the first group, but he heard a whispered question, and the answer,

"Miss Malroy's lawyer."

Clearly it was not for him to mix with these outsiders, these curiosity seekers. He crossed the lawn to the house, and mounted the steps. In the doorway was big Steve, while groups of men stood about in the hall, the hum of busy purposeless talk pervading the place. The judge frowned. This was all wrong.

"Has Mr. Ware returned from Memphis?" he asked of Steve.

"No, Sah; not yet."

"Then show me into the library," said the judge with bland authority, surrendering his hat to the butler. "Come along, Mahaffy!" he added. They entered the library, and the judge motioned Steve to close the door. "Now, boy, you'll kindly ask those people to withdraw—you may say it is Judge Price's orders. Allow no one to enter the house unless they have business with me, or as I send for them—you understand? After you have cleared the house, you may bring me a decanter of corn whisky—stop a bit—you may ask the sheriff to step here."

"Yes, Sah." And Steve withdrew.

The judge drew an easy-chair up to the flat-topped desk that stood in the center of the room, and seated himself.

"Are you going to make this the excuse for another drunk, Price? If so, I feel the greatest contempt for you," said Mahaffy sternly.

The judge winced at this.

"You have made a regrettable choice of words, Solomon," he urged gently.

"Where's your feeling for the boy?"

"Here!" said the judge, with an eloquent gesture, resting his hand on his heart.

"If you let whisky alone, I'll believe you, otherwise what I have said must stand."

The door opened, and the sheriff slouched into the room. He was chewing a long wheat straw, and his whole appearance was one of troubled weakness.

"Morning," he said briefly.

"Sit down, Sheriff," and the judge indicated a meek seat for the official in a distant corner. "Have you learned anything?" he asked.

The sheriff shook his head.

"What you turning all these neighbors out of doors for?" he questioned.

"We don't want people tracking in and out the house, Sheriff. Important evidence may be destroyed. I propose examining the slaves first—does that meet with your approval?"

"Oh, I've talked with them, they don't know nothing," said the sheriff. "No one don't know nothing."

"Please God, we may yet put our fingers on some villain who does," said the judge.

Outside it was noised about that judge Price had taken matters in hand—he was the old fellow who had been warned to keep his mouth shut, and who had never stopped talking since. A crowd collected beyond the library windows and feasted its eyes on the back of this hero's bald head.

One by one the house servants were ushered into the judge's presence. First he interrogated little Steve, who had gone to Miss Betty's door that morning to rouse her, as was his custom. Next he examined Betty's maid; then the cook, and various house servants, who had nothing especial to tell, but told it at considerable length; and lastly big Steve.

"Stop a bit," the judge suddenly interrupted the butler in the midst of his narrative. "Does the overseer always come up to the house the first thing in the morning?"

"Why, not exactly, Sah, but he come up this mo'ning, Sah. He was talking to me at the back of the house, when the women run out with the word that Missy was done gone away."

"He joined in the search?"

"Yes, Sah.''

"When was Miss Malroy seen last?" asked the judge.

"She and the young gemman you fotched heah were seen in the gyarden along about sundown. I seen them myself."

"They had had supper?"

"Yes, Sah."

"Who sleeps here?"

"Just little Steve and three of the women, they sleeps at the back of the house, Sah.''

"No sounds were heard during the night?"

"No, Sah."

"I'll see the overseer—what's his name?—Hicks? Suppose you go for him!" said the judge, addressing the sheriff.

The sheriff was gone from the room only a few moments, and returned with the information that Hicks was down at the bayou, which was to be dragged.

"Why?" inquired the judge.

"Hicks says Miss Malroy's been acting mighty queer ever since Charley Norton was shot—distracted like! He says he noticed it, and that Tom Ware noticed it."

"How does he explain the boy's disappearance?"

"He reckons she throwed herself in, and the boy tried to drag her out, like he naturally would, and got drawed in."

"Humph! I'll trouble Mr. Hicks to step here," said the judge quietly.

"There's Mr. Carrington and a couple of strangers outside who've been asking about Miss Malroy and the boy, seems like the strangers knowed her and him back yonder in No'th Carolina," said the sheriff as he turned away.

"I'll see them." The sheriff went from the room and the judge dismissed the servants.

"Well, what do you think, Price?" asked Mahaffy anxiously when they were alone.

"Rubbish! Take my word for it, Solomon, this blow is leveled at me. I have been too forward in my attempts to suppress the carnival of crime that is raging through west Tennessee. You'll observe that Miss Malroy disappeared at a moment when the public is disposed to think she has retained me as her legal adviser, probably she will be set at liberty when she agrees to drop the matter of Norton's murder. As for the boy, they'll use him to compel my silence and inaction." The judge took a long breath. "Yet there remains one point where the boy is concerned that completely baffles me. If we knew just a little more of his antecedents it might cause me to make a startling and radical move."

Mahaffy was clearly not impressed by the vague generalities in which the judge was dealing.

"There you go, Price, as usual, trying to convince yourself that you are the center of everything!" he said, in a tone of much exasperation. "Let's get down to business! What does this man Hicks mean by hinting at suicide? You saw Miss Malroy yesterday?"

"You have put your finger on a point of some significance," said the judge. "She bore evidence of the shock and loss she had sustained; aside from that she was quite as she has always been."

"Well, what do you want to see Hicks for? What do you expect to learn from him?"

"I don't like his insistence on the idea that Miss Malroy is mentally unbalanced. It's a question of some delicacy—the law, sir, fully recognizes that. It seems to me he is overanxious to account for her disappearance in a manner that can compromise no one."

Here they were interrupted by the opening of the door, and big Steve admitted Carrington and the two men of whom the sheriff had spoken.

"A shocking condition of affairs, Mr. Carrington!" said the judge by way of greeting.

"Yes," said Carrington shortly.

"You left these parts some time ago, I believe?" continued the judge.

"The day before Norton was shot. I had started home for Kentucky. I heard of his death when I reached Randolph on the second bluff," explained Carrington, from whose cheeks the weather-beaten bloom had faded. He rested his hand on the edge of the desk and turned to the men who had followed him into the room. "This is the gentleman you wish to see," he said, and stepped to one of the windows; it overlooked the terraces where he had said good-by to Betty scarcely a week before.

The two men had paused by the door. They now advanced. One was gaunt and haggard, his face disfigured by a great red scar, the other was a shockheaded individual who moved with a shambling gait. Both carried rifles and both were dressed in coarse homespun.

"Morning, sir," said the man with the scar. "Yancy's my name, and this gentleman 'lows he'd rather be known now as Mr. Cavendish."

The judge started to his feet.

"Bob Yancy?" he cried.

"Yes, sir, that's me." The judge passed nimbly around the desk and shook the Scratch Hiller warmly by the hand. "Where's my nevvy, sir—what's all this about him and Miss Betty?" Yancy's soft drawl was suddenly eager.

"Please God we'll recover him soon!" said the judge.

By the window Carrington moved impatiently. No harm could come to the boy, but Betty—a shudder went through him.

"They've stolen him." Yancy spoke with conviction. "I reckon they've started back to No'th Carolina with him—only that don't explain what's come of Miss Betty, does it?" and he dropped rather helplessly into a chair.

"Bob are just getting off a sick bed. He's been powerful porely in consequence of having his head laid open and then being throwed into the Elk River, where I fished him out," explained Cavendish, who still continued to regard the judge with unmixed astonishment, first cocking his shaggy head on one side and then on the other, his bleached eyes narrowed to a slit. Now and then he favored the austere Mahaffy with a fleeting glance. He seemed intuitively to understand the comradeship of their degradation.

"Mr. Cavendish fetched me here on his raft. We tied up to the sho' this morning. It was there we met Mr. Carrington—I'd knowed him slightly back yonder in No'th Carolina," continued Yancy. "He said I'd find Hannibal with you. I was counting a heap on seeing my nevvy."

Carrington, no longer able to control himself, swung about on his heel.

"What's been done?" he asked, with fierce repression. "What's going to be done? Don't you know that every second is precious?"

"I am about to conclude my investigations, sir," said the judge with dignity.

Carrington stepped to the door. After all, what was there to expect of these men? Whatever their interest, it was plainly centered in the boy. He passed out into the hall.

As the door closed on him the judge turned again to the Scratch Hiller.

"Mr. Yancy, Mr. Mahaffy and I hold your nephew in the tenderest regard, he has been our constant companion ever since you were lost to him. In this crisis you may rely upon us; we are committed to his recovery, no matter what it involves." The judge's tone was one of unalterable resolution.

"I reckon you-all have been mighty good and kind to him," said Yancy huskily.

"We have endeavored to be, Mr. Yancy—indeed I had formed the resolution legally to adopt him should you not come to claim him. I should have given him my name, and made him my heir. His education has already begun, under my supervision," and the judge, remembering the high use to which he had dedicated one of Pegloe's trade labels, fairly glowed with philanthropic fervor.

"Think of that!" murmured Yancy softly. He was deeply moved. So was Mr. Cavendish, who was gifted with a wealth of ready sympathy. He thrust out a hardened hand to the judge.

"Shake!" he said. "You're a heap better than you look." A thin ripple of laughter escaped Mahaffy, but the judge accepted Chills and Fever's proffered hand. He understood that here was a simple genuine soul.

"Price, isn't it important for us to know why Mr. Yancy thinks the boy has been taken back to North Carolina?" said Mahaffy.

"Just what kin is Hannibal to you, Mr. Yancy?" asked the judge resuming his seat.

"Strictly speaking, he ain't none. That he come to live with me is all owing to Mr. Crenshaw, who's a good man when left to himself, but he's got a wife, so a body may say he never is left to himself," began Yancy; and then briefly he told the story of the woman and the child much as he had told it to Bladen at the Barony the day of General Quintard's funeral.

The judge, his back to the light and his face in shadow, rested his left elbow on the desk and with his chin sunk in his palm, followed the Scratch Hiller's narrative with the closest attention.

"And General Quintard never saw him—never manifested any interest in him?" the words came slowly from the judge's lips, he seemed to gulp down something that rose in his throat. "Poor little lad!" he muttered, and again, "Poor little lad!"

"Never once, sir. He told the slaves to keep him out of his sight. We-all wondered, fo' you know how niggers will talk. We thought maybe he was some kin to the Quintards, but we couldn't figure out how. The old general never had but one child and she had been dead fo' years. The child couldn't have been hers no how." Yancy paused.

The judge drummed idly on the desk.

"What implacable hate—what iron pride!" he murmured, and swept his hand across his eyes. Absorbed and aloof, he was busy with his thoughts that spanned the waste of years, years that seemed to glide before him in review, each bitter with its hideous memories of shame and defeat. Then from the smoke of these lost battles emerged the lonely figure of the child as he had seen him that June night. His ponderous arm stiffened where it rested on the desk, he straightened up in his chair and his face assumed its customary expression of battered dignity, while a smile at once wistful and tender hovered about his lips.

"One other question," he said. "Until this man Murrell appeared you had no trouble with Bladen? He was content that you should keep the child—your right to Hannibal was never challenged?"

"Never, sir. All my troubles began about that time."

"Murrell belongs in these parts," said the judge.

"I'd admire fo' to meet him," said Yancy quietly.

The judge grinned.

"I place my professional services at your disposal," he said. "Yours is a clear case of felonious assault."

"No, it ain't, sir—I look at it this-a-ways; it's a clear case of my giving him the damnedest sort of a body beating!"

"Sir," said the judge, "I'll hold your hat while you are about it!"

Hicks had taken his time in responding to the judge's summons, but now his step sounded in the hall and throwing open the door he entered the room. Whether consciously or not he had acquired something of that surly, forbidding manner which was characteristic of his employer. A curt nod of the head was his only greeting.

"Will you sit down?" asked the judge. Hicks signified by another movement of the head that he would not. "This is a very dreadful business!" began the judge softly.

"Ain't it?" agreed Hicks. "What you got to say to me?" he added petulantly.

"Have you started to drag the bayou?" asked the judge. Hicks nodded. "That was your idea?" suggested the judge.

"No, it wa'n't," objected Hicks quickly. "But I said she had been actin' like she was plumb distracted ever since Charley Norton got shot—"

"How?" inquired the judge, arching his eyebrows. Hicks was plainly disturbed by the question.

"Sort of out of her head. Mr. Ware seen it, too—"

"He spoke of it?"

"Yes, sir; him and me discussed it together."

The judge regarded Hicks long and intently and in, silence. His magnificent mind was at work. If Betty had been distraught he had not observed any sign of it the previous day. If Ware were better informed as to her true mental state why had he chosen this time to go to Memphis?

"I suppose Mr. Ware asked you to keep an eye on Miss Malroy while he was away from home?" said the judge. Hicks, suspicious of the drift of his questioning, made no answer. "I suppose you told the house servants to keep her under observation?" continued the judge.

"I don't talk to no niggers," replied Hicks, "except to give 'em my orders."

"Well, did you give them that order?"

"No, I didn't."

The sudden and hurried entrance of big Steve brought the judge's examination of Mr. Hicks to a standstill.

"Mas'r, you know dat 'ar coachman George—the big black fellow dat took you into town las' evenin'? I jes' been down at Shanty Hill whar Milly, his wife, is carryin' on something scandalous 'cause George ain't never come home!" Steve was laboring under intense excitement, but he ignored the presence of the overseer and addressed himself to Slocum Price.

"Well, what of that?" cried Hicks quickly.

"Thar warn't no George, mind you, Mas'r, but dar was his team in de stable this mo'ning and lookin' mighty nigh done up with hard driving."

"Yes." interrupted Hicks uneasily; "put a pair of lines in a nigger's hands and he'll run any team off its legs!"

"An' the kerriage all scratched up from bein' thrashed through the bushes," added Steve.

"There's a nigger for you!" said Hicks. "She took the rascal out of the field, dressed him like he was a gentleman and pampered him up, and now first chance he gets he runs off!"

"Ah!" said the judge softly. "Then you knew this?"

"Of course I knew—wa'n't it my business to know? I reckon he was off skylarking, and when he'd seen the mess he'd made, the trifling fool took to the woods. Well, he catches it when I lay hands on him!"

"Do you know when and under what circumstances the team was stabled, Mr. Hicks?" inquired the judge.

"No, I don't, but I reckon it must have been along after dark," said Hicks unwillingly. "I seen to the feeding just after sundown like I always do, then I went to supper," Hicks vouchsafed to explain.

"And no one saw or heard the team drive in?"

"Not as I know of," said Hicks.

"Mas'r Ca'ington's done gone off to get a pack of dawgs—he 'lows hit's might' important to find what's come of George," said Steve.

Hicks started violently at this piece of news.

"I reckon he'll have to travel a right smart distance to find a pack of dogs," he muttered. "I don't know of none this side of Colonel Bates' down below Girard."

The judge was lost in thought. He permitted an interval of silence to elapse in which Hicks' glance slid round in a furtive circle.

"When did Mr. Ware set out for Memphis?" asked the judge at length.

"Early yesterday. He goes there pretty often on business."

"You talked with Mr. Ware before he left?" Hicks nodded. "Did he speak of Miss Malroy?" Hicks shook his head. "Did you see her during the afternoon?"

"No—maybe you think these niggers ain't enough to keep a man stirring?" said Hicks uneasily and with a scowl. The judge noticed both the uneasiness and the scowl.

"I should imagine they would absorb every moment of your time, Mr. Hicks," he agreed affably.

"A man's got to be a hog for work to hold a job like mine," said Hicks sourly.

"But it came to your notice that Miss Malroy has been in a disturbed mental state ever since Mr. Norton's murder? I am interested in this point, Mr. Hicks, because your experience is so entirely at variance with my own. It was my privilege to see and speak with her yesterday afternoon; I was profoundly impressed by her naturalness and composure." The judge smiled, then he leaned forward across the desk. "What were you doing up here early this morning—hasn't a hog for work like you got any business of his own at that hour?" The judge's tone was suddenly offensive.

"Look here, what right have you got to try and pump me?" cried Hicks.

For no discernible reason Mr. Cavendish spat on his palms.

"Mr. Hicks," said the judge, urbane and gracious, "I believe in frankness."

"Sure," agreed Hicks, mollified by the judge's altered tone.

"Therefore I do not hesitate to say that I consider you a damned scoundrel!" concluded the judge.

Mr. Cavendish, accepting the judge's ultimatum as something which must debar Hicks from all further consideration, and being, as he was, exceedingly active and energetic by nature, if one passed over the various forms of gainful industry, uttered a loud whoop and threw himself on the overseer. There was a brief struggle and Hicks went down with the Earl of Lambeth astride of him; then from his boot leg that knightly soul flashed a horn-handled tickler of formidable dimensions.

The judge, Yancy, and Mahaffy, sprang from their chairs. Mr. Mahaffy was plainly shocked at the spectacle of Mr. Cavendish's lawless violence. Yancy was disturbed too, but not by the moral aspects of the case; he was doubtful as to just how his friend's act would appeal to the judge. He need not have been distressed on that score, since the judge's one idea was to profit by it. With his hands on his knees he was now bending above the two men.

"What do you want to know, judge?" cried Cavendish, panting from his exertions. "I'll learn this parrot to talk up!"

"Hicks," said the judge, "it is in your power to tell us a few things we are here to find out." Hicks looked up into the judge's face and closed his lips grimly. "Mr. Cavendish, kindly let him have the point of that large knife where he'll feel it most!" ordered the judge.

"Talk quick!" said Cavendish with a ferocious scowl. "Talk—or what's to hinder me slicing open your woozen?" and he pressed the blade of his knife against the overseer's throat.

"I don't know anything about Miss Betty," said Hicks in a sullen whisper.

"Maybe you don't, but what do you know about the boy?" Hicks was silent, but he was grateful for the judge's question. From Tom Ware he had learned of Fentress' interest in the boy. Why should he shelter the colonel at risk to himself? "If you please, Mr. Cavendish!" said the judge quietly nodding toward the knife.

"You didn't ask me about him," said Hicks quickly.

"I do now," said the judge.

"He was here yesterday."

"Mr. Cavendish—" and again the judge glanced toward the knife.

"Wait!" cried Hicks. "You go to Colonel Fentress."

"Let him up, Mr. Cavendish; that's all we want to mow," said the judge.



CHAPTER XXIX. COLONEL FENTRESS

The judge had not forgotten his ghost, the ghost he had seen in Mr. Saul's office that day he went to the court-house on business for Charley Norton. Working or idling—principally the latter—drunk or sober—principally the former—the ghost, otherwise Colonel Fentress, had preserved a place in his thoughts, and now as he moved stolidly up the drive toward Fentress' big white house on the hill with Mahaffy, Cavendish, and Yancy trailing in his wake, memories of what had once been living and vital crowded in upon him. Some sense of the wreck that littered the long years, and the shame of the open shame that had swept away pride and self-respect, came back to him out of the past.

He only paused when he stood on the portico before Fentress' open door. He glanced about him at the wide fields, bounded by the distant timber lands that hid gloomy bottoms, at the great log barns in the hollow to his right; at the huddle of whitewashed cabins beyond; then with his big fist he reached in and pounded on the door. The blows echoed loudly through the silent house, and an instant later Fentress' tall, spare figure was seen advancing from the far end of the hall.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Judge Price—Colonel Fentress'' said the judge.

"Judge Price," uncertainly, and still advancing.

"I had flattered myself that you must have heard of me," said the judge.

"I think I have," said Fentress, pausing now.

"He thinks he has!" muttered the judge under his breath.

"Will you come in?" it was more a question than an invitation.

"If you are at liberty." The colonel bowed. "Allow me," the judge continued. "Colonel Fentress—Mr. Mahaffy, Mr. Yancy and Mr. Cavendish." Again the colonel bowed.

"Will you step into the library?"

"Very good," and the judge followed the colonel briskly down the hall.

When they entered the library Fentress turned and took stock of his guests. Mahaffy he had seen before; Yancy and Cavendish were of course strangers to him, but their appearance explained them; last of all his glance shifted to the judge. He had heard something of those activities by means of which Slocum Price had striven to distinguish himself, and he had a certain curiosity respecting the man. It was immediately satisfied. The judge had reached a degree of shabbiness seldom equaled, and but for his mellow, effulgent personality might well have passed for a common vagabond; and if his dress advertised the state of his finances, his face explained his habits. No misconception was possible about either.

"May I offer you a glass of liquor?" asked Fentress, breaking the silence. He stepped to the walnut centertable where there was a decanter and glasses. By a gesture the judge declined the invitation. Whereat the colonel looked surprised, but not so surprised as Mahaffy. There was another silence.

"I don't think we ever met before?" observed Fentress. There was something in the fixed stare his visitor was bending upon him that he found disquieting, just why, he could not have told.

But that fixed stare of the judge's continued. No, the man had not changed—he had grown older certainly, but age had not come ungracefully; he became the glossy broadcloth and spotless linen he wore. Here was a man who could command the good things of life, using them with a rational temperance. The room itself was in harmony with his character; it was plain but rich in its appointments, at once his library and his office, while the well-filled cases ranged about the walls showed his tastes to be in the main scholarly and intellectual.

"How long have you lived here?" asked the judge abruptly. Fentress seemed to hesitate; but the judge's glance, compelling and insistent, demanded an answer.

"Ten years."

"You have known many men of all classes as a lawyer and a planter?" said the judge. Fentress inclined his head. The judge took a step nearer him. "People have a great trick of coming and going in these western states—all sorts of damned riffraff drift in and out of these new lands." A deadly earnestness lifted the judge's words above mere rudeness. Fentress, cold and distant, made no reply. "For the past twenty years I have been looking for a man by the name of Gatewood—David Gatewood." Disciplined as he was, the colonel started violently. "Ever heard of him, Fentress?" demanded the judge with a savage scowl.

"What's all this to me?" The words came with a gasp from Fentress' twitching lips. The judge looked at him moody and frowning.

"I have reason to think this man Gatewood came to west Tennessee," he said.

"If so, I have never heard of him."

"Perhaps not under that name—at any rate you are going to hear of him now. This man Gatewood, who between ourselves was a damned scoundrel"—the colonel winced—"this man Gatewood had a friend who threw money and business in his way—a planter he was, same as Gatewood. A sort of partnership existed between the pair. It proved an expensive enterprise for Gatewood's friend, since he came to trust the damned scoundrel more and more as time passed—even large sums of his money were in Gatewood's hands—" the judge paused. Fentress' countenance was like stone, as expressionless and as rigid.

By the door stood Mahaffy with Yancy and Cavendish; they understood that what was obscure and meaningless to them held a tragic significance to these two men. The judge's heavy face, ordinarily battered and debauched, but infinitely good-natured, bore now the markings of deep passion, and the voice that rumbled forth from his capacious chest came to their ears like distant thunder.

"This friend of Gatewood's had a wife—" The judge's voice broke, emotion shook him like a leaf, he was tearing open his wounds. He reached over and poured himself a drink, sucking it down with greedy lips. "There was a wife—" he whirled about on his heel and faced Fentress again. "There was a wife, Fentress—" he fixed Fentress with his blazing eyes.

"A wife and child. Well, one day Gatewood and the wife were missing. Under the circumstances Gatewood's friend was well rid of the pair—he should have been grateful, but he wasn't, for his wife took his child, a daughter; and Gatewood a trifle of thirty thousand dollars his friend had intrusted to him!"

There was another silence.

"At a later day I met this man who had been betrayed by his wife and robbed by his friend. He had fallen out of the race—drink had done for him—there was just one thing he seemed to care about and that was the fate of his child, but maybe he was only curious there. He wondered if she had lived, and married—" Once more the judge paused.

"What's all this to me?" asked Fentress.

"Are you sure it's nothing to you?" demanded the judge hoarsely. "Understand this, Fentress. Gatewood's treachery brought ruin to at least two lives. It caused the woman's father to hide his face from the world, it wasn't enough for him that his friends believed his daughter dead; he knew differently and the shame of that knowledge ate into his soul. It cost the husband his place in the world, too—in the end it made of him a vagabond and a penniless wanderer."

"This is nothing to me," said Fentress.

"Wait!" cried the judge. "About six years ago the woman was seen at her father's home in North Carolina. I reckon Gatewood had cast her off. She didn't go back empty-handed. She had run away from her husband with a child—a girl; after a lapse of twenty years she returned to her father with a boy of two or three. There are two questions that must be answered when I find Gatewood: what became of the woman and what became of the child; are they living or dead; did the daughter grow up and marry and have a son? When I get my answer it will be time enough to think of Gatewood's punishment!" The judge leaned forward across the table, bringing his face close to Fentress' face. "Look at me—do you know me now?"

But Fentress' expression never altered. The judge fell back a step.

"Fentress, I want the boy," he said quietly.

"What boy?"

"My grandson."

"You are mad! What do I know of him—or you?" Fentress was gaining courage from the sound of his own voice.

"You know who he is and where he is. Your business relations with General Ware have put you on the track of the Quintard lands in this state. You intend to use the boy to gather them in."

"You're mad!" repeated Fentress.

"Unless you bring him to me inside of twenty-four hours I'll smash you!" roared the judge. "Your name isn't Fentress, it's Gatewood; you've stolen the name of Fentress, just as you have stolen other things. What's come of Turberville's wife and child? What's come of Turberville's money? Damn your soul! I want my grandson! I'll pull you down and leave you stripped and bare! I'll tell the world the false friend you've been—the thief you are! I'll strip you and turn you out of these doors as naked as when you entered the world!" The judge seemed to tower above Fentress, the man had shot up out of his deep debasement. "Choose! Choose!" he thundered, his shaggy brows bent in a menacing frown.

"I know nothing about the boy," said Fentress slowly.

"By God, you lie!" stormed the judge.

"I know nothing about the boy," and Fentress took a step toward the door.

"Stay where you are!" commanded the judge. "If you attempt to leave this room to call your niggers I'll kill you on its threshold!"

But Yancy and Cavendish had stepped to the door with an intention that was evident, and Fentress' thin face cast itself in haggard lines. He was feeling the judge's terrible capacity, his unexpected ability to deal with a supreme situation. Even Mahaffy gazed at his friend in wonder. He had only seen him spend himself on trifles, with no further object than the next meal or the next drink; he had believed that as he knew him so he had always been, lax and loose of tongue and deed, a noisy tavern hero, but now he saw that he was filling what must have been the measure of his manhood.

"I tell you I had no hand in carrying off the boy," said Fentress with a sardonic smile.

"I look to you to return him. Stir yourself, Gatewood, or by God, I'll hold so fierce a reckoning with you—"

The sentence remained unfinished, for Fentress felt his overwrought nerves snap, and giving way to a sudden blind fury struck at the judge.

"We are too old for rough and tumble," said the judge, who had displayed astonishing agility in avoiding the blow. "Furthermore we were once gentlemen. At present I am what I am, while you are a hound and a blackguard! We'll settle this as becomes our breeding." He poured himself a second glass of liquor from Fentress' decanter. "I wonder if it is possible to insult you," and he tossed glass and contents in Fentress' face. The colonel's thin features were convulsed. The judge watched him with a scornful curling of the lips. "I am treating you better than you deserve," he taunted.

"To-morrow morning at sun-up at Boggs' racetrack!" cried Fentress. The judge bowed with splendid courtesy.

"Nothing could please me half so well," he declared. He turned to the others. "Gentlemen, this is a private matter. When I have met Colonel Fentress I shall make a public announcement of why this appeared necessary to me; until then I trust this matter will not be given publicity. May I ask your silence?" He bowed again, and abruptly passed from the room.

His three friends followed in his steps, leaving Fentress standing by the table, the ghost of a smile on his thin lips.

As if the very place were evil, the judge hurried down the drive toward the road. At the gate he paused and turned on his companions, but his features wore a look of dignity that forbade comment or question. He held out his hand to Yancy.

"Sir," he said, "if I could command the riches of the Indies, it would tax my resources to meet the fractional part of my obligations to you."

"Think of that!" said Yancy, as much overwhelmed by the judge's manner as by his words.

"His Uncle Bob shall keep his place in my grandson's life! We'll watch him grow into manhood together." The judge was visibly affected. A smile of deep content parted Mr. Yancy's lips as his muscular fingers closed about the judge's hand with crushing force.

"Whoop!" cried Cavendish, delighted at this recognition of Yancy's love for the boy, and he gleefully smote the austere Mahaffy on the shoulder. But Mahaffy was dumb in the presence of the decencies, he quite lacked an interpreter. The judge looked back at the house.

"Mine!" he muttered. "The clothes he stands in, the food he eats—mine! Mine!"



CHAPTER XXX. THE BUBBLE BURSTS

At about the same hour that the judge was hurling threats and insults at Colonel Fentress, three men were waiting ten miles away at the head of the bayou which served to isolate Hicks' cabin. Now no one of these three had ever heard of Judge Slocum Price; the breath of his fame had never blown, however gently, in their direction, yet they were preparing to thrust opportunity upon him. To this end they were lounging about the opening in the woods where the horses belonging to Ware and Murrell were tied.

At length the dip of oars became audible in the silence and one of the trio stole down the path, a matter of fifty yards, to a point that overlooked the bayou. He was gone but a moment.

"It's Murrell all right!" he said in an eager whisper. "Him and another fellow—the Hicks girl is rowing them." He glanced from one to the other of his companions, who seemed to take firmer hold of themselves under his eye. "It'll be all right," he protested lightly. "He's as good as ours. Wait till I give you the word." And he led the way into an adjacent thicket.

Meantime Ware and Murrell had landed and were coming along the path, the outlaw a step or two in advance of his friend. They reached the horses and were untying them when the thicket suddenly disgorged the three men; each held a cocked pistol; two of these pistols covered Murrell and the third was leveled at Ware.

"Hues!" cried Murrell in astonishment, for the man confronting him was the Clan's messenger who should have been speeding across the state.

"Toss up your hands, Murrell," said Hues quietly.

One of the other men spoke.

"You are under arrest!"

"Arrest!"

"You are wanted for nigger-stealing," said the man. Still Murrell did not seem to comprehend. He looked at Hues in dull wonder.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Waiting to arrest you—ain't that plain?" said Hues, with a grim smile.

The outlaw's hands dropped at his side, limp and helpless. With some idea that he might attempt to draw a weapon one of the men took hold of him, but Murrell was nerveless to his touch; his face had gone a ghastly white and was streaked with the markings of terror.

"Well, by thunder!" cried the man in utter amazement.

Murrell looked into Hues' face.

"You—you—" and the words thickened on his tongue becoming an inarticulate murmur.

"It's all up, John," said Hues.

"No!" said Murrell, recovering himself. "You may as well turn me loose—you can't arrest me!"

"I've done it," answered Hues, with a laugh. "I've been on your track for six months."

"How about this fellow?" asked the man, whose pistol still covered Ware. Hues glanced toward the planter and shook his head.

"Where are you going to take me?" asked Murrell quickly. Again Hues laughed.

"You'll find that out in plenty of time, and then your friends can pass the word around if they like; now you'll come with me!"

Ware neither moved nor spoke as Hues and his prisoner passed back along the path, Hues with his hand on Murrell's shoulder, and one of his companions close at his heels, while the third man led off the outlaw's horse.

Presently the distant clatter of hoofs was borne to Ware's ears—only that; the miracle of courage and daring he had half expected had not happened. Murrell, for all his wild boasting, was like other men, like himself. His bloodshot eyes slid around in their sockets. There across the sunlit stretch of water was Betty—the thought of her brought him to quick choking terrors. The whole fabric of crime by which he had been benefited in the past or had expected to profit in the future seemed toppling in upon him, but his mind clutched one important fact. Hues, if he knew of Betty's disappearance, did not connect Murrell with it. Ware sucked in comfort between his twitching lips. Stealing niggers! No one would believe that he, a planter, had a hand in that, and for a brief instant he considered signaling Bess to return. Slosson must be told of Murrell's arrest; but he was sick with apprehension, some trap might have been prepared for him, he could not know; and the impulse to act forsook him.

He smote his hands together in a hopeless, beaten gesture. And Murrell had gone weak—with his own eyes he had seen it—Murrell—whom he believed without fear! He felt that he had been grievously betrayed in his trust and a hot rage poured through him. At last he climbed into the saddle, and swaying like a drunken man, galloped off.

When he reached the river road he paused and scanned its dusty surface. Hues and his party had turned south when they issued from the wood path. No doubt Murrell was being taken to Memphis. Ware laughed harshly. The outlaw would be free before another dawn broke.

He had halted near where Jim had turned his team the previous night after Betty and Hannibal had left the carriage; the marks of the wheels were as plainly distinguishable as the more recent trail left by the four men, and as he grasped the significance of that wide half circle his sense of injury overwhelmed him again. He hoped to live to see Murrell hanged!

He was so completely lost in his bitter reflections that he had been unaware of a mounted man who was coming toward him at a swift gallop, but now he heard the steady pounding of hoofs and, startled by the sound, looked up. A moment later the horseman drew rein at his side.

"Ware!" he cried.

"How are you, Carrington?" said the planter.

"You are wanted at Belle Plain," began Carrington, and seemed to hesitate.

"Yes—yes, I am going there at once—now—" stammered Ware, and gathered up his reins with a shaking hand.

"You've heard, I take it?" said Carrington slowly.

"Yes," answered Ware, in a hoarse whisper. "My God, Carrington, I'm heart sick; she has been like a daughter to me!" he fell silent mopping his face.

"I think I understand your feeling," said Carrington, giving him a level glance.

"Then you'll excuse me," and the planter clapped spurs to his horse. Once he looked back over his shoulder; he saw that Carrington had not moved from the spot where they had met.

At Belle Plain, Ware found his neighbors in possession of the place. They greeted him quietly and spoke in subdued tones of their sympathy. The planter listened with an air of such abject misery that those who had neither liked nor respected him, were roused to a sudden generous feeling where he was concerned, they could not question but that he was deeply affected. After all the man might have a side to his nature with which they had never come in contact.

When he could he shut himself in his room. He had experienced a day of maddening anxiety, he had not slept at all the previous night, in mind and body he was worn out; and now he was plunged into the thick of this sensation. He must keep control of himself, for every word he said would be remembered. In the present there was sympathy for him, but sooner or later people would return to their sordid unemotional judgments.

He sought to forecast the happenings of the next few hours. Murrell's friends would break jail for him, that was a foregone conclusion, but the insurrection he had planned was at an end. Hues had dealt its death blow. Moreover, though the law might be impotent to deal with Murrell, he could not hope to escape the vengeance of the powerful class he had plotted to destroy; he would have to quit the country. Ware gloated in this idea of craven flight. Thank God, he had seen the last of him!

But as always his thoughts came back to Betty. Slosson would wait at the Hicks' place for the man Murrell had promised him, and failing this messenger, for the signal fire, but there would be neither; and Slosson would be left to determine his own course of action. Ware felt certain that he would wait through the night, but as sure as the morning broke, if no word had reached him, he would send one of his men across the bayou, who must learn of Murrell's arrest, escape, flight—for in Ware's mind these three events were indissolubly associated. The planter's teeth knocked together. He was having a terrible acquaintance with fear, its very depths had swallowed him up; it was a black pit in which he sank from horror to horror. He had lost all faith in the Clan which had terrorized half a dozen states, which had robbed and murdered with apparent impunity, which had marketed its hundreds of stolen slaves. He had utterly collapsed at the first blow dealt the organization, but he was still seeing Murrell, pallid and shaken.

A step sounded in the hall and an instant later Hicks entered the room without the formality of knocking. Ware recognized his presence with a glance of indifference, but did not speak. Hicks slouched to his employer's side and handed him a note which proved to be from Fentress. Ware read and tossed it aside.

"If he wants to see me why don't he come here?" he growled.

"I reckon that old fellow they call Judge Price has sprung something sudden on the colonel," said Hicks.

"He was out here the first thing this morning; you'd have thought he owned Belle Plain. There was a couple of strangers with him, and he had me in and fired questions at me for half an hour, then he hiked off up to The Oaks."

"Murrell's been arrested," said Ware in a dull level voice. Hicks gave him a glance of unmixed astonishment.

"No!" he cried.

"Yes, by God!"

"Who'd risk it?"

"Risk it? Man, he almost fainted dead away—a damned coward. Hell!"

"How do you know this?" asked Hicks, appalled.

"I was with him when he was taken—it was Hues the man he trusted more than any other!" Ware gave the overseer a ghastly grin and was silent, but in that silence he heard the drumming of his own heart. He went on. "I tell you to save himself John Murrell will implicate the rest of us; we've got to get him free, and then, by hell—we ought to knock him in the head; he isn't fit to live!"

"The jail ain't built that'll hold him!!" muttered Hicks.

"Of course, he can't be held," agreed Ware. "And 'he'll never be brought to trial; no lawyer will dare appear against him, no jury will dare find him guilty; but there's Hues, what about him?" He paused. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

"Where did they carry the captain?" inquired Hicks.

"I don't know."

"It looks like the Clan was in a hell-fired hole—but shucks! What will be easier than to fix Hues?—and while they're fixing folks they'd better not overlook that old fellow Price. He's got some notion about Fentress and the boy." Mr. Hicks did not consider it necessary to explain that he was himself largely responsible for this.

"How do you know that?" demanded Ware.

"He as good as said so." Hicks looked uneasily at the planter. He knew himself to be compromised. The stranger named Cavendish had forced an admission from him that Murrell would not condone if it came to his knowledge. He had also acquired a very proper and wholesome fear of Judge Slocum Price. He stepped close to Ware's side. "What'll come of the girl, Tom? Can you figure that out?" he questioned, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. But Ware was incapable of speech, again his terrors completely overwhelmed him. "I reckon you'll have to find another overseer. I'm going to strike out for Texas," said Hicks.

Ware's eyes met his for an instant. He had thought of flight, too, was still thinking of it, but greed was as much a part of his nature as fear; Belle Plain was a prize not to be lightly cast aside, and it was almost his. He lurched across the room to the window. If he were going to act, the sooner he did so the better, and gain a respite from his fears. The road down the coast slid away before his heavy eyes, he marked each turn; then a palsy of fear shook him, his heart beat against his ribs, and he stood gnawing his lips while he gazed up at the sun.

"Do you get what I say, Tom? I am going to quit these parts," said Hicks. Ware turned slowly from the window.

"All right, Hicks. You mean you want me to settle with you, is that it?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm going to leave while I can, maybe I can't later on," said Hicks stolidly. He added: "I am going to start down the coast as soon as it turns dark, and before it's day again I'll have put the good miles between me and these parts."

"You're going down the coast?" and Ware was again conscious of the quickened beating of his heart. Hicks nodded. "See you don't meet up with John Murrell," said Ware.