te sufficient to stop this
thing right here, and it need go no further."

"Perhaps we are," he answered doubtfully. "What is your plan, sir?"

"Polete will hold a meeting to-night over there in the woods. Well, we
will be present at the meeting."

He looked at me without saying a word. "Our visit will probably not be
very welcome," I continued, "but I believe it will produce the desired
effect. Will you go with me?"

"Certainly," he answered readily, "but I still think my plan the
best, sir."

"Perhaps it is," I laughed, "but we will try mine first," and he went
back to the field, agreeing to be at the house at eight o'clock.

I covered with my hand the tiny letters on the arm of the bench, and,
looking out across the broad river, drifted into the land of dreams,
where Dorothy and I wandered together along a primrose path, with none to
interfere.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GOVERNOR SHOWS HIS GRATITUDE

I ate my supper in solitary splendor in the old dining-room, with my
grandfather's portrait looking down upon me, and Long found me an hour
later sitting in the midst of a wreath of smoke just within the hallway
out of the river mist.

"'T was as you said, Mr. Stewart," he remarked, as he joined me. "Fully a
hundred of the niggers stole off to the woods to-night so soon as it was
dark. They went down toward the old Black Snake swamp."

"Very well," I said, rising. "Wait till I get my hat, and I am with you."

"But you will go armed?" he asked anxiously.

I paused to think for a moment.

"No, I will not," I said finally. "A brace of pistols would avail
nothing against that mob, should they choose to resist us, and our going
unarmed will have a great moral effect upon them as showing them that we
are not afraid."

"You have weighed fully the extent of the risk you are about to run, I
hope, sir," protested Long.

"Fully," I answered. "'T is not yet too late for you to turn back, you
know. I have no right to ask you to endanger your life to carry out this
plan of mine. Perhaps it would be wiser for you not to go."

"And if I stay, you"--

"Will go alone," I said.

He caught my hand and wrung it heartily.

"You are a brave man, Mr. Stewart," he exclaimed. "If I have shown any
hesitation, 't was on your account, not on my own. I am ready to go with
you," and as he spoke, he drew a brace of pistols from beneath his coat
and laid them on the table by the fireplace.

"Wait one moment," I said, and hurr