n. "He'll be a good
dog that follows it through, these woods!"

They had paused on a thickly wooded hillside.

"We've come eight or ten miles if we have come a rod, Price," said
Mahaffy, "and I am in favor of lying by for the day. When it comes dark
we can go on again."

The judge readily acquiesced in this, and they presently found a dense
thicket which they cautiously entered. Reaching the center of the
tangled growth, they beat down the briers and bushes, or cut them away
with their knives, until they had a little cleared space where they
could build a fire. Then from the pack which Mahaffy carried, the
rudiments of a simple but filling meal were produced.

"Your parents took no chances when they named you Solomon!" said the
judge approvingly.

CHAPTER XIV. BELLE PLAIN

"Now, Tom," said Betty, with a bustling little air of excitement as she
rose from the breakfast table that first morning at Belle Plain, "I am
ready if you are. I want you to show me everything!"

"I reckon you'll notice some changes," remarked Tom.

He went from the room and down the hall a step or two in advance of her.
On the wide porch Betty paused, breathing deep. The house stood on an
eminence; directly before it at the bottom of the slight descent was a
small bayou, beyond this the forest stretched away in one unbroken mass
to the Mississippi. Here and there, gleaming in the brilliant morning
light, some great bend of the river was visible through the trees, while
the Arkansas coast, blue and distant, piled up against the far horizon.

"What is it you want to see, anyhow, Betty?" Tom demanded, turning on
her.

"Everything--the place, Tom--Belle Plain! Oh, isn't it beautiful! I had
no idea how lovely it was!" cried Betty, as with her eyes still fixed on
the distant panorama of woods and water she went down the steps, Tom
at her heels--he bet she'd get sick of it all soon enough, that was one
comfort!

"Why, Tom! Why does the lawn look like this?"

"Like what?" inquired Tom.

"Why, this--all weeds and briers, and the paths overgrown?" and as Betty
surveyed the unkempt waste that had once been a lawn, a little frown
fixed itself on her smooth brow.

Mr. Ware rubbed his chin reflectively with the back of his hand.

"That sort of thing looked all right, Bet," he said, "but it kept five
or six of the best hands out of the fields right at the busiest time of
the year."

"Haven't I slaves enough?" she asked.

The dull col