circuit, he paid many a visit to old Wardelow, to learn strength
from this perfect example of patient faith.

As the circuit-rider left the old man one evening, and sought his
faithful horse in the deserted barn in which he had tied him, he was
somewhat astonished to find the horse unloosed, and another man quietly
leading him away.

Courage and decision being among the qualities which are natural to the
successful circuit-rider, he sprang at the thief and knocked him down.
The operator in horse-flesh speedily regained his feet, however, and as
he closed with the preacher the latter saw, under the starlight, the
gleam of a knife.

Commending himself to the Lord, he made such vigorous efforts for the
safety of his body that, within two or three moments, he had the thief
face downward on the ground, his own knee on the thief's back, one hand
upon the thief's neck, and in his other hand the thief's knife. Then the
circuit-rider delivered a short address.

"My sinful friend," said he, "when two men get into such a scrape as
this, and one of them is in your line of business, one or the other will
have to die, and I don't propose to be the one. I haven't finished the
work which the Master has given me to do. If you've any dying messages
to send to anybody, I give you my word as a preacher that they shall be
delivered, but you must speak quick. What's your name?"

"I'll give you five hundred dollars to let me off--you may holler for
help and tie my hand, and--"

"No use--speak quick," hissed the preacher--"what's your name?"

"Stephen Wardelow," gasped the thief.

"What!" roared the preacher, loosening his grasp, but instantly
tightening it again.

"Stephen Wardelow," replied the thief. "But I haven't got any messages
to send to anybody. I haven't a relative in the world, and nobody would
care if I was dead. I might as well go now as any time. Hit square when
yo _do_ let me have it--that's all!"

"Where's your parents?" asked the preacher.

"Dead, I reckon," the thief answered. "Leastways, I know mother is, and
dad lived in a fever an' aguerish place, an' I s'pose he's gone, too,
before this."

"Where did he live?"

"I don't know--some new settlement somewheres in Illinois. I got lost in
the river when I was a little boy, an' was picked up by a tradin'-boat
an' sold for a nearly-white nigger--I s'pose I _was_ pretty dark."

There was a silence; the captive lay perfectly quiet, as if expecting
the fatal blow.