elligent, speaks handsomely, can read and
write, will probably try to pass for a white man, is deeply
scarred on his back and shoulders, has been branded in his
right hand with the letter H.

"I will give four hundred dollars for him alive, and the
same sum for satisfactory proof that he has been _killed."_

The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to end in a low
voice, as if he were studying it.

The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire-iron, as before
related, now took down his cumbrous length, and rearing aloft his tall
form, walked up to the advertisement and very deliberately spit a full
discharge of tobacco-juice on it.

"There's my mind upon that!" said he, briefly, and sat down again.

"Why, now, stranger, what's that for?" said mine host.

"I'd do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if he was
here," said the long man, coolly resuming his old employment of cutting
tobacco. "Any man that owns a boy like that, and can't find any better
way o' treating on him, _deserves_ to lose him. Such papers as these
is a shame to Kentucky; that's my mind right out, if anybody wants to
know!"

"Well, now, that's a fact," said mine host, as he made an entry in his
book.

"I've got a gang of boys, sir," said the long man, resuming his attack
on the fire-irons, "and I jest tells 'em--'Boys,' says I,--'_run_ now!
dig! put! jest when ye want to! I never shall come to look after you!'
That's the way I keep mine. Let 'em know they are free to run any time,
and it jest breaks up their wanting to. More 'n all, I've got free
papers for 'em all recorded, in case I gets keeled up any o' these
times, and they know it; and I tell ye, stranger, there an't a fellow in
our parts gets more out of his niggers than I do. Why, my boys have been
to Cincinnati, with five hundred dollars' worth of colts, and brought
me back the money, all straight, time and agin. It stands to reason
they should. Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs'
actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works." And the
honest drover, in his warmth, endorsed this moral sentiment by firing a
perfect _feu de joi_ at the fireplace.

"I think you're altogether right, friend," said Mr. Wilson; "and this
boy described here _is_ a fine fellow--no mistake about that. He worked
for me some half-dozen years in my bagging factory, and he was my best
hand, sir. He is an ingenious fellow, to