g
to do with the point that's in my favor, but I've said too much already
and we'd better drop the subject."

I was burning to know more, for I recalled the change of manner that had
come over Mr. Jucklin at the time he spoke of having sent his daughter
away to school, and I was turning this over and over in my mind, when
Alf said: "A young fellow named Dan Stuart often goes to see Millie, and
I don't know how much she thinks of him, but some of his people are high
flyers, and that may have an influence in his favor. Doc Etheredge, out
here, is his cousin, and old man Etheredge owned nearly a hundred and
fifty negroes at one time. But when that girl stands up at the altar to
marry some one else, they will find me there putting in my protest."

When we reached home I found Guinea sitting under a tree, reading, and I
had joined her when the old man called me. Looking about I saw him
standing at the end of the house, beckoning to me. "I want to see you a
minute," he said, as I approached him. I wondered whether he was again
going to show me his chickens, and it was a relief when he conducted me
in an opposite direction. He looked back to see if we were far enough
away, and then, coming closer to me, he said: "This is the way I came to
do it."

"Do what?" I asked, not over pleased that he should have called upon me
to leave the girl.

"Wallow him, the old General. He claimed that my hogs had been gettin'
into his field, and I told him that I didn't feel disposed to keep my
hogs up when everybody else's were runnin' at large, and then he called
me a scoundrel and we clinched. I took him so quick that he wasn't
prepared for me, and I give a sort of a hem stich and down he went,
right in the middle of the road. And there I was right on top of him. He
didn't say a word, while I was wallowin' him, but when I let him up, he
looked all round and then said: 'Lim Jucklin, if I thought anybody was
lookin' I'd kill you right here. You are the first man that ever
wallowed a Lundsford and lived, and the novelty of the thing sorter
appeals to me. You know that I'm not afraid of the devil, and keep your
mouth shut about this affair, and we'll let it drap.' And he meant just
what he said, and I did keep my mouth shut, not because I was afraid of
his hurtin' me, but because I was sorry to humiliate him. Ever hear of
John Mortimer Lacey? Well, shortly after that him and Lundsford fit a
duel and Lacey went to New Orleans and died there. S