Wain is rich, an' owns a big
plantation, an' hires a lot of hands, and is a big man in the county.
He's crazy to git her, an' it all lays in her own han's."

Frank did not find this news reassuring. He believed that Wain was a
liar and a scoundrel. He had nothing more than his intuitions upon
which to found this belief, but it was none the less firm. If his
estimate of the man's character were correct, then his wealth might be
a fiction, pure and simple. If so, the truth should be known to Mis'
Molly, so that instead of encouraging a marriage with Wain, she would
see him in his true light, and interpose to rescue her daughter from
his importunities. A day or two after this conversation, Frank met in
the town a negro from Sampson County, made his acquaintance, and
inquired if he knew a man by the name of Jeff Wain.

"Oh, Jeff Wain!" returned the countryman slightingly; "yas, I knows
'im, an' don' know no good of 'im. One er dese yer biggity, braggin'
niggers--talks lack he own de whole county, an' ain't wuth no mo' d'n I
is--jes' a big bladder wid a handful er shot rattlin' roun' in it. Had
a wife, when I wuz dere, an' beat her an' 'bused her so she had ter run
away."

This was alarming information. Wain had passed in the town as a single
man, and Frank had had no hint that he had ever been married. There
was something wrong somewhere. Frank determined that he would find out
the truth and, if possible, do something to protect Rena against the
obviously evil designs of the man who had taken her away. The barrel
factory had so affected the cooper's trade that Peter and Frank had
turned their attention more or less to the manufacture of small
woodenware for domestic use. Frank's mule was eating off its own head,
as the saying goes. It required but little effort to persuade Peter
that his son might take a load of buckets and tubs and piggins into the
country and sell them or trade them for country produce at a profit.

In a few days Frank had his stock prepared, and set out on the road to
Sampson County. He went about thirty miles the first day, and camped
by the roadside for the night, resuming the journey at dawn. After
driving for an hour through the tall pines that overhung the road like
the stately arch of a cathedral aisle, weaving a carpet for the earth
with their brown spines and cones, and soothing the ear with their
ceaseless murmur, Frank stopped to water his mule at a point where the
white, sand