gs' with his presence, not
because he felt the least interest in horse-racing, but because he had
no faith in girls, and especially had he profound mistrust of Betty. She
was so much easily portable wealth, a pink-faced chit ready to fall into
the arms of the first man who proposed to her. But Charley Norton had
not seemed disturbed by the planter's forbidding air. Between those
two there existed complete reciprocity of feeling, inasmuch as
Tom's presence was as distasteful to Norton as his own presence was
distressing to Ware.

"Where is your Uncle Bob, Hannibal?" Betty asked, glancing about, and
at her question a shadow crossed the child's face and the tears gathered
again in his eyes.

"Ain't you seen him, Miss Betty?" he whispered. He had been sustained by
the belief that when he found her he should find his Uncle Bob, too.

"Why, what do you mean, Hannibal--isn't your Uncle Bob with you?"
demanded Betty.

"He got hurt in a fight, and I got separated from him way back yonder
just after we came out of the mountains." He looked up piteously into
Betty's face. "But you think he'll find me, don't you?"

"Why, you poor little thing!" cried Betty compassionately, and again she
sank on her knees at Hannibal's side, and slipped her arms about him.
The child began to cry softly.

"What ragamuffin's this, Betty?" growled Ware disgustedly.

But Betty did not seem to hear.

"Did you come alone, Hannibal?" she asked.

"No, ma'am; the judge and Mr. Mahaffy, they fetched me."

The judge had drawn nearer as Betty and Hannibal spoke together, but
Mahaffy hung back. There were gulfs not to be crossed by him. It was
different with the judge; the native magnificence of his mind fitted him
for any occasion. He pulled up his stock, and coaxed a half-inch of limp
linen down about his wrists, then very splendidly he lifted his napless
hat from his shiny bald head and pressing it against his fat chest with
much fervor, elegantly inclined himself from the hips.

"Allow me the honor to present myself, ma'am--Price is my name--Judge
Slocum Price. May I be permitted to assume that this is the Miss
Betty of whom my young protege so often speaks?" The judge beamed
benevolently, and rested a ponderous hand on the boy's head.

Tom Ware gave him a glance of undisguised astonishment, while Norton
regarded him with an expression of stunned and resolute gravity. Mahaffy
seemed to be undergoing a terrible moment of uncertainty. He was divi