I'll look after him," said the colonel shortly.

"In order to keep the docket straight," said the justice, "I should
want to note yo' bid. How long shall I say?"

"Say what you like," said the colonel, drawing out his pocketbook.

"You don't care to bid, Mr. Turner?" asked the justice.

"Not by a damn sight," replied Turner, with native elegance. "I buy
niggers to work, not to bury."

"I withdraw my bid in favour of the gentleman," said the two-year
bidder.

"Thank you," said the colonel.

"Remember, suh," said the justice to the colonel, "that you are
responsible for his keep as well as entitled to his labour, for the
period of your bid. How long shall I make it?"

"As long as you please," said the colonel impatiently.

"Sold," said the justice, bringing down his gavel, "for life, to--what
name, suh?"

"French--Henry French."

There was some manifestation of interest in the crowd; and the colonel
was stared at with undisguised curiosity as he paid the fine and
costs, which included two dollars for two meals in the guardhouse, and
walked away with his purchase--a purchase which his father had made,
upon terms not very different, fifty years before.

"One of the old Frenches," I reckon, said a bystander, "come back on a
visit."

"Yes," said another, "old 'ristocrats roun' here. Well, they ought to
take keer of their old niggers. They got all the good out of 'em when
they were young. But they're not runnin' things now."

An hour later the colonel, driving leisurely about the outskirts of
the town and seeking to connect his memories more closely with the
scenes around him, met a buggy in which sat the man Turner. After the
buggy, tied behind one another to a rope, like a coffle of slaves,
marched the three Negroes whose time he had bought at the constable's
sale. Among them, of course, was the young man who had been called Bud
Johnson. The colonel observed that this Negro's face, when turned
toward the white man in front of him, expressed a fierce hatred, as of
some wild thing of the woods, which finding itself trapped and
betrayed, would go to any length to injure its captor.

Turner passed the colonel with no sign of recognition or greeting.

Bud Johnson evidently recognised the friendly gentleman who had
interfered in Peter's case. He threw toward the colonel a look which
resembled an appeal; but it was involuntary, and lasted but a moment,
and, when the prisoner became conscious of it, and realised