o that poor free negro, Levi. I can't say, I really do not
know," his eyes followed Betty as she flew out to climb behind Dan on the
pony's back. "I wish it were Champe, myself," he added doubtfully.

For Betty--independent Betty--had become Dan's slave. Ever since the
afternoon of the burning woodpile, she had bent her stubborn little knees
to him in hero-worship. She followed closer than a shadow on his footsteps;
no tortures could wring his secrets from her lips. Once, when he hid
himself in the mountains for a day and night and played Indian, she kept
silence, though she knew his hiding-place, and a search party was out with
lanterns until dawn.

"I didn't tell," she said triumphantly, when he came down again.

"No, you didn't tell," he frankly acknowledged.

"So I can keep a secret," she declared at last.

"Oh, yes, you can keep a secret--for a girl," he returned, and added, "I
tell you what, I like you better than anybody about here, except grandpa
and Big Abel."

She shone upon him, her eyes narrowing; then her face darkened. "Not better
than Big Abel?" she questioned plaintively.

"Why, I have to like Big Abel best," he replied, "because he belongs to me,
you know--you ought to love the thing that belongs to you."

"But I might belong to you," suggested Betty. She smiled again, and,
smiling or grave, she always looked as if she were standing in a patch of
sunshine, her hair made such a brightness about her.

"Oh, you couldn't, you're white," said Dan; "and, besides, I reckon Big
Abel and the pony are as much as I can manage. It's a dreadful weight,
having people belong to you."

Then he loaded his gun, and Betty ran away with her fingers in her ears,
because she couldn't bear to have things killed.

A month later Dan and Champe settled down to study. The new tutor came--a
serious young man from the North, who wore spectacles, and read the Bible
to the slaves on the half-holidays. He was kindly and conscientious, and,
though the boys found him unduly weighed down by responsibility for the
souls of his fellows, they soon loved him in a light-hearted fashion. In a
society where even the rector harvested alike the true grain and the tares,
and left the Almighty to do His own winnowing, Mr. Bennett's free-handed
fight with the flesh and the devil was looked upon with smiling tolerance,
as if he were charging a windmill with a wooden sword.

On Saturdays he would ride over to Uplands, and discuss his schem