he sheriff. "He refuses to work."

"A year, or one hundred dollars."

Colonel Cresswell paid his fine, and took him in charge.

"What's the charge here?" said the Judge, pointing to Aunt Rachel's boy.

"Attempt to kill a white man."

"Any witnesses?"

"None except the victim."

"And I," said Zora, coming forward.

Both the sheriff and Colonel Cresswell stared at her. Of course, she was
simply a black girl but she was an educated woman, who knew things about
the Cresswell plantations that it was unnecessary to air in court. The
newly elected Judge had not yet taken his seat, and Cresswell's word was
still law in the court. He whispered to the Judge.

"Case postponed," said the Court.

The sheriff scowled.

"Wait till Jim gets on the bench," he growled.

The white bystanders, however, did not seem enthusiastic and one man--he
was a Northern spinner--spoke out plainly.

"It's none o' my business, of course. I've been fired and I'm damned
glad of it. But see here: if you mutts think you're going to beat these
big blokes at their own game of cheating niggers you're daffy. You take
this from me: get together with the niggers and hold up this whole
capitalist gang. If you don't get the niggers first, they'll use 'em as
a club to throw you down. You hear me," and he departed for the train.

Colton was suspicious. The sentiment of joining with the Negroes did not
seem to arouse the bitter resentment he expected. There even came
whispers to his ears that he had sold out to the landlords, and there
was enough truth in the report to scare him. Thus to both parties came
the uncomfortable spectre of the black men, and both sides went to work
to lay the ghost.

Particularly was Colonel Cresswell stirred to action. He realized that
in Bles and Zora he was dealing with a younger class of educated black
folk, who were learning to fight with new weapons. They were, he was
sure, as dissolute and weak as their parents, but they were shrewder and
more aspiring. They must be crushed, and crushed quickly. To this end he
had recourse to two sources of help--Johnson and the whites in town.

Johnson was what Colonel Cresswell repeatedly called "a faithful
nigger." He was one of those constitutionally timid creatures into whom
the servility of his fathers had sunk so deep that it had become
second-nature. To him a white man was an archangel, while the
Cresswells, his father's masters, stood for God. He served them with
dog-like