on loomed ahead. There was some talk
of a strike, but Colton, the new sheriff, discouraged it.

"I tell you, boys, where the trouble lies: it's the niggers. They live
on nothing and take any kind of treatment, and they keep wages down. If
you strike, they'll get your jobs, sure. We'll just have to grin and
bear it a while, but get back at the darkies whenever you can. I'll
stick 'em into the chain-gang every chance I get."

On the other hand, inspired by fright, the grip of the landlords on the
black serfs closed with steadily increasing firmness. They saw one class
rising from beneath them to power, and they tightened the chains on the
other. Matters simmered on in this way, and the only party wholly
satisfied with conditions was John Taylor and the few young Southerners
who saw through his eyes. He was making money. The landlords, on the
contrary, were losing power and prestige, and their farm labor, despite
strenuous efforts, was drifting to town attracted by new and incidental
work and higher wages. The mill-hands were more and more overworked and
underpaid, and hated the Negroes for it in accordance with their
leaders' directions.

At the same time the oppressed blacks and scowling mill-hands could not
help recurring again and again to the same inarticulate thought which no
one was brave enough to voice. Once, however, it came out flatly. It was
when Zora, crowding into the village courthouse to see if she could not
help Aunt Rachel's accused boy, found herself beside a gaunt, overworked
white woman. The woman was struggling with a crippled child and Zora,
turning, lifted him carefully for the weak mother, who thanked her half
timidly. "That mill's about killed him," she said.

At this juncture the manacled boy was led into court, and the woman
suddenly turned again to Zora.

"Durned if I don't think these white slaves and black slaves had ought
ter git together," she declared.

"I think so, too," Zora agreed.

Colonel Cresswell himself caught the conversation and it struck him with
a certain dismay. Suppose such a conjunction should come to pass? He
edged over to John Taylor and spoke to him; but Taylor, who had just
successfully stopped a suit for damages to the injured boy, merely
shrugged his shoulders.

"What's this nigger charged with?" demanded the Judge when the first
black boy was brought up before him.

"Breaking his labor contract."

"Any witnesses?"

"I have the contract here," announced t