rats," he had said. "They're ristycrats, an' it
gives 'em a pull even if they was rebels an' Southerners. A pore man ez
works hard an' ain't nothin' but a honest farmer, an' a sound Union man
ain't got no show. Ef I'd been a ristycrat I could hev got inflooence ez
hed hev pulled wires fur me. But I hain't nothin' but my loyal Union
principles. I ain't no ristycrat, an' I never aimed to be none."

The bitterness of his nervous envy would have kept him awake if he had
had no other reason for being disturbed, but most of all he was
sleepless, because he was desperately ill and in danger he knew nothing
of. Cold and weeks of semi-starvation, anxiety, excitement, and drenched
garments had done the little man to death, and he lay raging with fever
and stabbed with pain at each indrawn breath, tossing and gasping and
burning, but thinking only of Linthicum and the herds and the scraps of
paper which were to bring him five hundred dollars. He was physically
wretched, but even while he was racked with agonised fits of coughing and
prostrated with pain it did not occur to him to think that he was in
danger. He was too wholly absorbed in other thoughts. The only danger he
recognised was the danger that there might be some failure in his
plans--that Linthicum might give him up--that the parson might back out
of his bargain, realising that after all letters unsigned save by a man's
Christian name were not substantial evidence. Perhaps he would not come
at all; perhaps he would leave the city; perhaps if he came he would
refuse to give more than half or quarter the sum asked. Then Linthicum
would throw him over--he knew Linthicum would throw him over. He uttered
a small cry like a tortured cat.

"I know he'll do it," he said. "I seen it in his eye yesterday, when he
let out on me an' said he was a-gettin' sick of the business. I shed hev
kept my mouth shut. I'd said too much an' it made him mad. He'll throw me
over Monday mornin' ef I don't take him the money on Sunday."

He ate nothing all through the day but lay waiting for the passing of the
hours. He had calculated as to which post would bring the letter from
Minty. He had written to tell her of the hiding-place in which he had
kept the bits of paper safe and dry through all the years. She was to
enclose them in a stout envelope and send them to him.

Through the long, dragging day he lay alone burning, gasping, fighting
for his breath in the attacks of coughing which seemed to