ggers' side."

"But, Mistah Haines," asked Peter, excitedly, "is I got to stay here
all night? I ain' done nuthin'."

"No, that's the trouble; you ain't done nuthin' fer a month, but loaf
aroun'. You ain't got no visible means of suppo't, so you're took up
for vagrancy."

"But I does wo'k we'n I kin git any wo'k ter do," the old man
expostulated. "An' ef I kin jus' git wo'd ter de right w'ite folks,
I'll be outer here in half a' hour; dey'll go my bail."

"They can't go yo' bail to-night, fer the squire's gone home. I'll
bring you some bread and meat, an' some whiskey if you want it, and
you'll be tried to-morrow mornin'."

Old Peter still protested.

"You niggers are always kickin'," said the constable, who was not
without a certain grim sense of humour, and not above talking to a
Negro when there were no white folks around to talk to, or to listen.
"I never see people so hard to satisfy. You ain' got no home, an' here
I've give' you a place to sleep, an' you're kickin'. You doan know
from one day to another where you'll git yo' meals, an' I offer you
bread and meat and whiskey--an' you're kickin'! You say you can't git
nothin' to do, an' yit with the prospect of a reg'lar job befo' you
to-morrer--you're kickin'! I never see the beat of it in all my bo'n
days."

When the constable, chuckling at his own humour, left the guardhouse,
he found his way to a nearby barroom, kept by one Clay Jackson, a
place with an evil reputation as the resort of white men of a low
class. Most crimes of violence in the town could be traced to its
influence, and more than one had been committed within its walls.

"Has Mr. Turner been in here?" demanded Haines of the man in charge.

The bartender, with a backward movement of his thumb, indicated a door
opening into a room at the rear. Here the constable found his man--a
burly, bearded giant, with a red face, a cunning eye and an
overbearing manner. He had a bottle and a glass before him, and was
unsociably drinking alone.

"Howdy, Haines," said Turner, "How's things? How many have you got
this time?"

"I've got three rounded up, Mr. Turner, an' I'll take up another befo'
night. That'll make fo'--fifty dollars fer me, an' the res' fer the
squire."

"That's good," rejoined Turner. "Have a glass of liquor. How much do
you s'pose the Squire'll fine Bud?"

"Well," replied Haines, drinking down the glass of whiskey at a gulp,
"I reckon about twenty-five dollars."

"You can make