fras to break up a gang of negro
toughs that have opened a gambling den. He'll be back this evening and
I'll have the warrant ready for him by the time he gets back. Any of us
can swear it out--reckon all our names better go to it."

"Yes," the Major agreed, "we'd better observe the formalities of the
law. The militia will undo all that has been done, and as for the fellow
that brought about the inquietude, we'll see him hanged in front of this
door."

Old man Parker, who kept the records, nudged his neighbor and said:
"Inquietude is the word. I told my wife last night, says I, 'Nancy,
whenever you want the right word, go to John Cranceford.' That's what I
said. Major; and I might have said go to your father if he was alive,
for he stood 'way up among the pictures, I tell you; and I reckon I
knowd him as well as any man in the county. I ricollect his duel with
Dabney."

"He was to have fought a man named Anderson Green," replied the Major,
"but a compromise was effected."

"Yes," said Parker, "Green's the man I was tryin' to think of. It was
Shelton that fought Dabney."

"Shelton fought Whitesides," said the Major.

The men began to titter, "Well, then, who was it fought Dabney?"

"Never heard of Dabney," the Major answered.

"Well, I have, and somebody fought him, but it makes no difference. So,
in your father's case a compromise was effected. The right word again;
and that's what makes me say to my wife, 'Nancy, whenever you want the
right word go to John Cranceford;' and, as I said a while ago, your
father either, for I knowd him as well as any man, and was present at
the time he bought a flat-boat nigger named Pratt Boyce."

"My father was once forced to sell, but he never bought a negro," the
Major replied.

"That so? Well, now, who was it bought Pratt Boyce? You fellers shut up
your snortin'. I reckon I know what I'm talkin' about."

The county judge and several other men came in and the talk concerning
the threatened negro outbreak was again taken up. "It seems rather
singular," said the Judge, "that we should worry through a storm of
politics and escape any very serious bloodshed and reach a climax after
all these years. Of course when two races of people, wholly at variance
in morals and social standing, inhabit the same community, there is
always more or less danger, still I don't think that the negroes have so
little sense----"

"Ah, the point I made," the Major broke in. "But you see a labor p