was a large sum of money. As, for several reasons, it was deemed
advisable that my real business there should be kept secret, I assumed
the role of a settler, took possession of a vacant tract of land, built
a two-pen log cabin, engaged a negro servant, and proceeded to explore
the country with a view to making the acquaintance of my neighbors.

"The place in which I was located was remote from railroads or regular
routes of travel, and was about as wild and lawless a district as could
well be found east of the Mississippi. It was a limestone country,
abounding in sink-holes, caverns, and underground rivers, and thickly
covered with a primeval growth of timber. A few clearings at long
intervals marked the fields and garden patches of its widely scattered
inhabitants, who were as primitive a set of people as I had ever
encountered. During the war it had been a very hot-bed of bushwhacking,
and its men had plundered and killed on both sides, with a slight
predilection in favor of Southerners and a bitter hatred of Yankees.
Although I carefully concealed my connection with the army, and was most
guarded in my remarks whenever forced to allude to the war, I could not
hide the fact that I was a Northern man. On that account alone I was
from the first an object of suspicion and close scrutiny to my
neighbors, by most of whom my friendly overtures were received with a
sullen unresponsiveness that was, to say the least, discouraging.

"My nearest neighbor was a giant of a man named Case Haffner, who, as I
learned before leaving Washington, was the acknowledged leader of the
district and foremost in all its deeds of deviltry. He, better than any
other, could furnish me with the information I wished to acquire. For
this reason I had taken up my abode as near to him as the unwritten law
of the country, which forbade neighbors to live within less than a mile
of each other, allowed. In vain did I strive to cultivate his
acquaintance. He would have nothing to do with me. Only by stratagem did
I succeed in meeting him, when he simply ignored my presence and walked
away without a word. He lived alone with his son Abner, a bright,
keen-witted lad of about fifteen, the pride of his father's life and the
sole object of his ambitions. With this boy I also tried to scrape an
acquaintance, hoping to win the father's confidence through him, but to
no purpose. He either eluded me or fled like a startled deer if by
chance we met. While others