a cent; but white's my color, and I don't want to trade in it."

They halted at a small, sharp-gabled brick house, of one story and a
kitchen and garret, at the left of the road, to which the corner of a
piece of oak and hickory woods came up shelteringly, while in the rear
several small barns and cribs enclosed the triangle of a field. A door
in the middle, towards Maryland, seemed very high-silled, and low
grated windows were at the cellar on each side of the steps.

The place had a suspicious appearance, and a pack of hounds in full cry
rushed from the kitchen, and, while in the act of leaping the stile and
palings, were arrested almost in mid air by a chuffy voice crying from
within:

"Hya! Down! Spitch!"

The whole pack meekly sneaked back to the house, whining low, and a few
blows of a switch and short howls within completed the excitement.

"What place is this?" asked Owen Daw.

"Devil Jim Clark's," said Sorden.

The dwelling stood about forty yards back from the road, drawing nearly
into the cover of the woods, and its little yard was made cavernous by
thick-planted paper-mulberry and maple trees, while a line of
cherry-trees and an old pole-well rose along the road and hedge. As they
rode to the rear of the house a little dormer window, like a snail,
crawled low along the roof, and a light was shining from it.

"Devil Jim's business-office," nodded Sorden.

"What's his business?" asked Levin, freshly.

"Niggers. He keeps 'em up thar between the garret and the
roof--sometimes in the cellar."

"Does he want a business-office for that?"

"He's a contractor on the canawl, too, Jim is--raises race-horses, farms
it, gambles a little, but nigger-runnin' is his best game. My skin! Yer
comes Captain Van Dorn. I love him as I never loved A male."

"Van Dorn," spoke a voice from the house, "remember my family is
particular. Your men must go to the barn. Come in!"

"Spiced brandy at the barn!"--a quiet remark from somewhere--was
sufficient to lead the herd away, and, giving the order to "water and
fodder," Van Dorn passed into the kitchen, thence through a bedroom to
the chief room of the house, and up a small winding-stair to a scrap of
hallway or corridor hardly two feet wide.

The man who led pointed to a trap above one end of this hall, and
exclaimed, "Niggers there! family yonder!"--the last reference to a door
closing the little passage.

He then opened a wicket at the side of the hall, admitting V