urs after the deed had been committed, a well-equipped
party of horsemen started in pursuit, and for more than a week conducted a
thorough campaign through that division of the Ocmulgee swamps that was
supposed to have furnished a retreat to the murderers. They did not
succeed, however, further than to obtain a view of the refugees, and
salute them with a volley at long range; and seeing that their efforts
would prove fruitless, returned to their homes. Here the matter rested
until the following spring, when a party of Ku-Klux, raiding in that
vicinity, were fired upon from the brush, and one of their number killed,
by two men who were positively recognized as the swamp-ruffians. Having
buried their dead companion, in obedience to the strange ceremonies in
vogue with them, the members of the Klan assembled around his grave, and
recorded an oath "never to relent from their purpose of revenge, nor cease
the pursuit of his murderers, while the Ocmulgee contained water, and the
region fertilized by it and its tributaries supported an inch of
unexplored territory."

Not far from the scene of the last occurrence lived Uncle Jack B----, a
character in the neighborhood prior to Sherman's raid and reconstruction,
but who, since those events, in view of a somewhat disproportioned record,
had been singing exceedingly small. In _ante bellum_ times, this old
gentleman had been looked up to, by both whites and blacks of his
vicinity, as in some sense the reigning monarch of the locality, and one
between whose smiles and frowns lay considerations that might engage the
attention of much weightier personages than any whom the countryside
supported. In brief, Uncle Jack had been the proud proprietor of the
largest and best known pack of "nigger dogs" in the "Goober State," with
all that that implied in the language of the reconstructionists; and if he
did not still possess that distinction, it was altogether attributable to
the circumstance that the office which it involved had ceased to be a
sinecure, and the property in question was no longer quoted among
commercial values. But though the old man and his beasts bowed their heads
under the in _terrorem_ of the new order of things, they well knew that
this _dies irae_ could not last always, and were, moreover, fully persuaded
of the truth of the old proverb which insures to every well-behaved canine
a "dish" in passing events. That they were not sophists in this matter
will be sufficientl