ilton settled himself down to run. In a second he
was at the landing. The tender had just cast off her ropes and was
moving out.

"Bridget," he cried, and his voice rang high and clear above the
dripping of the water from the cable, the creaking of the wheel as it
swung round, and the churning of the screw. "Bridget, Bridget Mahoney,
Jim's here!"

The captain came to the window of the pilot house and called back:

"What's that?"

"Bridget!" he shouted again. "Bridget Mahoney's Jim's here!"

There was a pause, the captain not seeming to understand the situation,
but a cheer went up from the deportation officials on board and from
some of the tender's crew who knew; and the cry ran along the decks:

"Bridget, Bridget Mahoney! Jim's here!"

[Illustration: WHERE THE WORKERS COME FROM. Family of German
immigrants, passing through Ellis Island on their way to the Middle
West. (_Courtesy of U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island._)]

CHAPTER VI

THE NEGRO CENSUS FROM THE SADDLE

Leaving New York the next day after his visit to the Immigration Station
on Ellis Island, Hamilton stayed only a few hours in Washington to
receive final instructions before proceeding to the southwestern part of
Kentucky where his work as a population census-taker was to begin.

At the appointed place he found the supervisor awaiting him.

"I suppose you know," remarked his brother's friend, shaking hands,
"that I've given you a fairly well scattered district to cover. You said
you wanted to get a chance to see Kentucky as it really is, and this,
together with your mountain experience, ought to give you variety
enough."

"They told me in Washington that it was largely a negro district?" the
boy said questioningly.

"It is about as much of a black district as any in Kentucky," was the
reply, "but it isn't solid black by any means. Therein lies its
interest. The negroes are of all varieties, from old-time slaves who
have never left the plantation on which they were piccaninnies during
the war, to progressive negroes owning fair-sized tracts of land, most
of them still living in the one-room shacks that you see all over the
country, but a few having bought what used to be the 'big house' in
antebellum days."

"That's just exactly what I was after," Hamilton said with delight. "How
do I cover it, sir? In the saddle?"

"You can drive, if you want to," the supervisor replied, "and if it
wasn't for the agricultural schedules, I t