r Lura's
body?' And he says, 'You know damn' well I didn't want to be paid for
Lura's body, Pros Passmore,' he says. 'But do you reckon I'm a-goin' to
let them mill men strut around with money they got that-a-way in their
pockets? No, I'll not. I'll see 'em cold in hell fust,' he says--them
Dawsons is a hard nation o' folks, Johnnie. I talked to 'em for a spell,
and tried to make 'em see that the Hardwick folks hadn't never sold no
dead body to the student doctors; but they was all mad and out o'
theirselves. I seed that they wanted to get up a feud. 'Well,' says
Rudd, 'They've got one of the Dawsons, and before we're done we'll get
one o' them.'

"'Uh-huh,' I says, 'you-all air a-goin' to get one o' them, air ye? Do
you mean by that that you're ready to run your heads into a noose?'

"'We don't have to run our heads into nary noose,' says Sam Dawson.
'Shade Buckheath is a-standin' in with us. He knows all them mill
fellers, an' their ways. He aims to he'p us; an' we'll ketch one o' them
men out, and carry him off up here som'ers, and hold him till they pay
us what we ask. I reckon the live body of one o' them chaps is worth a
thousand dollars.' That's jest what he said," concluded the old man,
turning toward her; "an' from what you tell me, Johnnie, I'll bet Shade
Buckheath put the words in his mouth, if not the notion in his head."

"Yes," whispered Johnnie through white lips, "yes; but Shade Buckheath
isn't looking to make money out of it. He knows better than to think
that they could keep Mr. Stoddard prisoner a while, and then get money
for bringing him back, and never have to answer for it. He said he'd get
even--he'd fix him. Shade wants just one thing--Oh, Uncle Pros! Do you
think they've killed him?"

The old man looked carefully away from her.

"This here kidnappin' business, an tryin' to get money out of a feller's
friends, most generally does wind up in a killin'," he said. "The folks
gits to huntin' pretty hot, then them that's done the trick gets scared,
and--they wouldn't have no good place to put him, them Dawsons,
and--and," reluctantly, "a dead body's easier hid than a live man. Truth
is, hit looks mighty bad for the young feller, honey girl. To my mind
hit's really a question of time. The sooner his friends gets to him the
better, that's my belief."

Johnnie's pale, haggard face took on tragic lines as she listened to
this plain putting of her own worst fears. She sprang up desperately.
Uncle P