f his horse's
heels died away, the last sound or sight of his home. But over his heart
there seemed to be a warm spot, where those young hands had placed that
precious dollar. Tom put up his hand, and held it close to his heart.

"Now, I tell ye what, Tom," said Haley, as he came up to the wagon, and
threw in the handcuffs, "I mean to start fa'r with ye, as I gen'ally do
with my niggers; and I'll tell ye now, to begin with, you treat me fa'r,
and I'll treat you fa'r; I an't never hard on my niggers. Calculates to
do the best for 'em I can. Now, ye see, you'd better jest settle down
comfortable, and not be tryin' no tricks; because nigger's tricks of all
sorts I'm up to, and it's no use. If niggers is quiet, and don't try to
get off, they has good times with me; and if they don't, why, it's thar
fault, and not mine."

Tom assured Haley that he had no present intentions of running off. In
fact, the exhortation seemed rather a superfluous one to a man with a
great pair of iron fetters on his feet. But Mr. Haley had got in
the habit of commencing his relations with his stock with little
exhortations of this nature, calculated, as he deemed, to inspire
cheerfulness and confidence, and prevent the necessity of any unpleasant
scenes.

And here, for the present, we take our leave of Tom, to pursue the
fortunes of other characters in our story.

CHAPTER XI

In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind

It was late in a drizzly afternoon that a traveler alighted at the door
of a small country hotel, in the village of N----, in Kentucky. In the
barroom he found assembled quite a miscellaneous company, whom stress of
weather had driven to harbor, and the place presented the usual scenery
of such reunions. Great, tall, raw-boned Kentuckians, attired in
hunting-shirts, and trailing their loose joints over a vast extent of
territory, with the easy lounge peculiar to the race,--rifles stacked
away in the corner, shot-pouches, game-bags, hunting-dogs, and little
negroes, all rolled together in the corners,--were the characteristic
features in the picture. At each end of the fireplace sat a long-legged
gentleman, with his chair tipped back, his hat on his head, and the
heels of his muddy boots reposing sublimely on the mantel-piece,--a
position, we will inform our readers, decidedly favorable to the turn
of reflection incident to western taverns, where travellers exhibit
a decided preference for this particular mode o