thought you were safe in----"

"State prison, eh? Well, so I was, but they've pardoned me out. I was a
reformed character, you see; and then my vote was wanted at the last
election, ha! ha! And so I've come down to see how my old friends are
getting along."

"Friends! don't count me among them!" returned Arthur, hastily;
"jail-birds are no mates for me."

"No, I understand that, the disgrace is in being caught. But you'd as well
keep a civil tongue in your head; for if you're covering me with a
revolver, I'm doing the same by you."

"I'm not afraid of you, Tom," answered Arthur, with a scornful laugh, "but
I'm in a hurry; so be good enough to move out of the way and let me pass."
For the other had now planted himself in the middle of the road, and laid
a heavy hand upon the horse's bridle-rein.

"When I've said my say; no sooner. So that pretty niece of yours, my
former fiancee, is engaged to Travilla? the man whom, of all others, I
hate with a hatred bitterer than death. I would set my heel upon his head
and grind it into the earth as I would the head of a venomous reptile."

"Who told you?"

"I overheard some o' their sweet talk as they rode by here not two hours
ago. He robbed me of her that he might snatch the prize himself; I saw his
game at the time. But he shall never get her," he concluded, grinding his
teeth with rage.

"Pray, how do you propose to prevent it?"

"I'll call him out."

Arthur's laugh rang out mockingly upon the still night air. "Southern
gentlemen accept a challenge only from gentlemen; and as for Travilla,
besides being a dead shot, he's too pious to fight a duel, even with his
own class."

"He'll meet me in fair fight, or I'll shoot him down, like a dog, in his
tracks." The words, spoken in low tone, of concentrated fury, were
accompanied with a volley of horrible oaths.

"You'd better not try it!" said Arthur; "you'd be lynched and hung on the
nearest tree within an hour."

"They'd have to catch me first."

"And they would, they'd set their bloodhounds on your track, and there'd
be no escape. As to the lady having been your fiancee--she never was; she
would not engage herself without my brother's consent, which you were not
able to obtain. And now you'd better take yourself off out of this
neighborhood, after such threats as you've made!"

"That means you intend to turn informer, eh?"

"It means nothing of the kind, unless I'm called up as a witness in court;
but you can'