n't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never
said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:

"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done
that!"

"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"

"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's
gone."

"SOLD him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was MY nigger, and that
was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger."

"Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all--so dry up your blubbering.
Looky here--do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think
I'd trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us--"

He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before.
I went on a-whimpering, and says:

"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow.
I got to turn out and find my nigger."

He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on
his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:

"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll
promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you
where to find him."

So I promised, and he says:

"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he
started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to
study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he
was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the
way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:

"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and he
lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."

"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this
very afternoon."

"No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it,
neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in
your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with
US, d'ye hear?"

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted
to be left free to work my plans.

"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want
to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger--some idiots
don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such down South
here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe
he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for get