hite."

"But they'll rule us--out-vote us--marry our daughters," warmly objected
the Colonel.

"Some of them may--most of them won't. A few of them with brains will
help us rule the rest with money. We'll plant cotton mills beside the
cotton fields, use whites to keep niggers in their place, and the fear
of niggers to keep the poorer whites in theirs."

The Colonel looked thoughtful.

"There's something in that," he confessed after a while; "but it's a
mighty big experiment, and it may go awry."

"Not with brains and money to guide it. And at any rate, we've got to
try it; it's the next logical step, and we must take it."

"But in the meantime, I'm not going to give up good old methods; I'm
going to set the sheriff behind these lazy niggers," said the Colonel;
"and I'm going to stop that school putting notions into their heads."

In three short months the mill at Toomsville was open and its wheels
whizzing to the boundless pride of the citizens.

"Our enterprise, sir!" they said to the strangers on the strength of the
five thousand dollars locally invested.

Once it had vigor to sing, the song of the mill knew no resting; morning
and evening, day and night it crooned its rhythmic tune; only during the
daylight Sundays did its murmur die to a sibilant hiss. All the week its
doors were filled with the coming and going of men and women and
children: many men, more women, and greater and greater throngs of
children. It seemed to devour children, sitting with its myriad eyes
gleaming and its black maw open, drawing in the pale white mites,
sucking their blood and spewing them out paler and ever paler. The face
of the town began to change, showing a ragged tuberculous looking side
with dingy homes in short and homely rows.

There came gradually a new consciousness to the town. Hitherto town and
country had been ruled by a few great landlords but at the very first
election, Colton, an unknown outsider, had beaten the regular candidate
for sheriff by such a majority that the big property owners dared not
count him out. They had, however, an earnest consultation with John
Taylor.

"It's just as I said," growled Colonel Cresswell, "if you don't watch
out our whole plantation system will be ruined and we'll be governed by
this white trash from the hills."

"There's only one way," sighed Caldwell, the merchant; "we've got to
vote the niggers."

John Taylor laughed. "Nonsense!" he spurned the suggestion. "You're
old