know so little and yet which touch our material
lives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep and
dreams, or second sight, or the day dreams which we call visions?"

Phil was silent, and the doctor went on dreamily:

"The day my boy Richard was killed at Gettysburg, I saw him lying dead in
a field near a house. I saw some soldiers bury him in the corner of that
field, and then an old man go to the grave, dig up his body, cart it away
into the woods, and throw it into a ditch. I saw it before I heard of the
battle or knew that he was in it. He was reported killed, and his body has
never been found. It is the one unspeakable horror of the war to me. I'll
never get over it."

"How very strange!" exclaimed Phil.

"And yet the war was nothing, my boy, to the horrors I feel clutching the
throat of the South to-day. I'm glad you and your father are down here.
Your disinterested view of things may help us at Washington when we need
it most. The South seems to have no friend at court."

"Your younger men, I find, are hopeful, Doctor," said Phil.

"Yes, the young never see danger until it's time to die. I'm not a
pessimist, but I was happier in jail. Scores of my old friends have given
up in despair and died. Delicate and cultured women are living on cowpeas,
corn bread, and molasses--and of such quality they would not have fed it
to a slave. Children go to bed hungry. Droves of brutal negroes roam at
large, stealing, murdering, and threatening blacker crimes. We are under
the heel of petty military tyrants, few of whom ever smelled gunpowder in
a battle. At the approaching election, not a decent white man in this
country can take the infamous test oath. I am disfranchised because I gave
a cup of water to the lips of one of my dying boys on the battlefield. My
slaves are all voters. There will be a negro majority of more than one
hundred thousand in this state. Desperadoes are here teaching these
negroes insolence and crime in their secret societies. The future is a
nightmare."

[Illustration: HENRY WALTHALL AS BEN CAMERON.]

"You have my sympathy, sir," said Phil warmly, extending his hand. "These
Reconstruction Acts, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, can
bring only shame and disgrace until the last trace of them is wiped from
our laws. I hope it will not be necessary to do it in blood."

The doctor was deeply touched. He could not be mistaken in the genuineness
of any man's feeling. H