m a big drink of whiskey, and then
let him come round and see his young master and his new mistress."

The colonel's face wore an expression compounded of joy and
indignation,--joy at the restoration of a valuable piece of property;
indignation for reasons he proceeded to state.

"It 's astounding, the depths of depravity the human heart is capable
of! I was coming along the road three miles away, when I heard some one
call me from the roadside. I pulled up the mare, and who should come out
of the woods but Grandison. The poor nigger could hardly crawl along,
with the help of a broken limb. I was never more astonished in my life.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. He seemed pretty far
gone,--he could hardly talk above a whisper,--and I had to give him a
mouthful of whiskey to brace him up so he could tell his story. It 's
just as I thought from the beginning, Dick; Grandison had no notion of
running away; he knew when he was well off, and where his friends were.
All the persuasions of abolition liars and runaway niggers did not move
him. But the desperation of those fanatics knew no bounds; their guilty
consciences gave them no rest. They got the notion somehow that
Grandison belonged to a nigger-catcher, and had been brought North as a
spy to help capture ungrateful runaway servants. They actually kidnaped
him--just think of it!--and gagged him and bound him and threw him
rudely into a wagon, and carried him into the gloomy depths of a
Canadian forest, and locked him in a lonely hut, and fed him on bread
and water for three weeks. One of the scoundrels wanted to kill him, and
persuaded the others that it ought to be done; but they got to
quarreling about how they should do it, and before they had their minds
made up Grandison escaped, and, keeping his back steadily to the North
Star, made his way, after suffering incredible hardships, back to the
old plantation, back to his master, his friends, and his home. Why, it 's
as good as one of Scott's novels! Mr. Simms or some other one of our
Southern authors ought to write it up."

"Don't you think, sir," suggested Dick, who had calmly smoked his cigar
throughout the colonel's animated recital, "that that kidnaping yarn
sounds a little improbable? Is n't there some more likely explanation?"

"Nonsense, Dick; it 's the gospel truth! Those infernal abolitionists
are capable of anything--everything! Just think of their locking the
poor, faithful nigger up, beati