time I
reached the place where I intended to count my companion's cash, I
became very thirsty, and insisted on turning down a deep hollow, or
dale, that headed near the road, to hunt some water. We had followed
down the dale for near four hundred yards, when I drew my pistol and
shot him through. He fell dead; I commenced hunting for his cash, and
opened his large pocketbook, which was stuffed very full; and when I
began to open it I thought it was a treasure indeed; but oh! the
contents of that book! it was richly filled with the copies of
love-songs, the forms of love-letters, and some of his own
composition,--but no cash. I began to cut off his clothes with my knife,
and examine them for his money. I found four dollars and a half in
change in his pockets, and no more. And is this the amount for which
twenty negroes sold? thought I. I recollected his watch and jewelry, and
I gathered them in; his chain was rich and good, but it was swung to an
old brass watch. He was a puff for true, and I thought all such fools
ought to die as soon as possible. I took his horse, and swapped him to
an Indian native for four ponies, and sold them on the way home. I
reached home, and spent a few weeks among the girls of my acquaintance,
in all the enjoyments that money could afford.

"My next trip was through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Virginia, and Maryland, and then back to South Carolina, and from there
round by Florida and Alabama. I began to conduct the progress of my
operations, and establish my emissaries over the country in every
direction.

"I have been going ever since from one place to another, directing and
managing; but I have others now as good as myself to manage. This
fellow, Phelps, that I was telling you of before, he is a noble chap
among the negroes, and he wants them all free; he knows how to excite
them as well as any person; but he will not do for a robber, as he
cannot kill a man unless he has received an injury from him first. He is
now in jail at Vicksburg, and I fear will hang. I went to see him not
long since, but he is so strictly watched that nothing can be done. He
has been in the habit of stopping men on the highway, and robbing them,
and letting them go on; but that will never do for a robber; after I rob
a man he will never give evidence against me, and there is but one safe
plan in the business, and that is to kill--if I could not afford to kill
a man, I would not rob.

"The great ob