After his midday meal, Colonel Calvin Blount, wandering aimlessly and none too well content about the yard, came across one of his servants, who was in the act of unrolling the fresh bear hide and spreading it out to dry. He kicked idly at a fold in the hide.

"Look here, Jim," he said suddenly, "Mr. Decherd killed this b'ah, didn't he?"

"Yassah," said Jim.

"And he shoots a rifle; and here are three holes—buckshot holes—in the hide. And you had a gun loaded with buckshot. Did you lend it to Mr. Decherd?"

"No, sah," said Jim, turning his head away.

"Look here, boy," said Blount. "There is no liar, black or white, can go out with my dogs; because my dogs don't lie and I don't. Now, tell me about this."

"Well, Cunnel," said the boy, half ready to blubber, "the b'ah was faihly a-chawin' ol' Fly up. He wus right at me, an' I ran up close so's not to hurt ol' Fly, and I done shot him."

"That's all right," said Colonel Blount. "How about the rest?"

"Well, sah, I had the b'ah mos' skinned, when up comes Mr. 'Cherd. 'That's my b'ah,' said he. 'Co'se it is,' says I. Then he 'lowed he'd give me two dollahs ef I said he was de man dat killed de b'ah."

Blount stared reflectively at a knot-hole in the side of the barn.

"Jim," said he, at length, "give me the two dollars. I'll take care of that." So saying, he swung on his heel and turned away.

The day was now far advanced, and the great white house had grown silent. As Blount entered, he met no one at first, but finally at the door of a half-darkened room midway of the hall, he heard the rustle of a gown and saw approaching him the not uncomely figure of the quasi-head of the menage, Mrs. Ellison. The latter moved slowly and easily forward, pausing at the doorway, where, so framed, she presented a picture attractive enough to arrest the attention of even a bear-hunting bachelor.

"I am glad to see you back, Colonel," said she. "I am always so uneasy when you are away;" she sighed.

Blount felt himself vaguely uncomfortable, but was not quite able to turn away.

"I was just in my room," said Mrs. Ellison, "as I heard you passing by. I had a little headache."

"That's too bad," said Colonel Blount, and turned again to go. The unspoken invitation of the other still restrained him. She leaned against the door, soft-eyed, her white hand waving an effective fan, an attractive, a seductive picture.

"Why don't you ever come in and sit down and talk to me for a minute?" said she, at length. "I scarcely see you at all any more."

Blount gathered an uneasy hint of something, he knew not what; yet he followed her back into the half-darkened room, and presently, seated near her, and wrapped in his own enthusiasms, forgot all but the bear chase, whose incidents he began eagerly to relate. His vis-a-vis sat looking at him with eyes which took in fully the careless strength of his tall and strong figure. For some time now her eyes had rested on this same figure, this man who had to do with work and the chase, with hardship and adventure, and never anything more gentle—this man who could not see!

"You must be more careful," said Mrs. Ellison. "But still, you are safely back, and I'm glad you had good luck."

"Well, I don't know what you would call good luck," said Blount. "The fact is, I had a little trouble, coming in."

"Trouble? In what way?"

"Well, it happened this way," said he, with a quick glance about him. "I don't like to mention such things, but I suppose you ought to know. This was about a couple of negroes back in the country a way. You know, I am a sort of deputy sheriff, and I was called on to do a little work with those same negroes. I suppose you know, ma'am, that those negroes used to run this whole state a few years ago, though they ain't studying so much about politics to-day."

"I know something of that," said Mrs. Ellison. "That was soon after the war, they tell me. But they gave that up long ago. They don't bother with politics now."

"No," resumed Blount. "They're not studying so much as they used to. Not long ago I had a number of northern philanthropists down here, who came down to look into the "conditions in this district." I said I'd show them everything they wanted; so I sent out for some of my field hands. I said to one of them, "Bill," said I, "these gentlemen want to ask you some questions. I suppose your name is William Henry Arnold, isn't it?" "Yassah," said Bill. "You was county supervisor here some years ago, wasn't you, Bill?' 'Yassah,' said Bill. I said, 'I beg your pardon, Mr. William Henry Arnold, but will you please step up here to my desk and write your name for these gentlemen?' 'Why, sho'! boss,' said he, 'you know I kain't write mah name.' 'That's all,' said I.

"'Now, gentlemen,' said I, 'exhibit number two is Mr. George Washington Sims. 'George,' said I, 'you used to be our county treasurer, didn't you?' He said he did. 'Who paid the taxes, then, George?' said I. 'Why, boss, you white folks paid most of 'um.' 'All right, Mr. George Washington Sims,' said I, 'you step up here and write your name for these gentlemen.' He just laughed. 'That'll do,' said I.

"'Exhibit number three,' said I to these northern philanthropists, 'is our late distinguished fellow citizen, Abednego Shadrach Jones. He was our county clerk down here a while back. 'Nego, who paid the taxes, time you was clerk?' He was right uncomfortable. 'Why, boss,' said he, 'you paid most of 'um, you an' the white folks in heah. No niggah man had nothin' to pay taxes on.'

"'You know that we white folks had to pay for the schools and bridges, and the county buildings—had to pay salaries—had to pay the county clerk and the janitor—had to pay everything?' I said to him. 'Yassah,' said Nego.

"'You were elected legally, and we white folks couldn't out-vote you, nohow?' 'Yassah,' said he. 'I s'pose we wus all 'lected legal 'nough. I dunno rightly, but dey all done tol' me dat wuz so.'

"'Nego,' said I, 'step up here to your boss' desk and write your
name, just like you do when I give you credit for a bale of cotton.'
Nego he steps up and he makes a mark, and a mighty poor mark at that.
'You can go,' I said to him.

"'Now, gentlemen,' said I to them, 'do you want exhibits number four and five and six?' And they allowed they didn't.

"There was one fellow in the lot who stepped up to me and took my hand. He was a Federal colonel in the war, but he said to me, 'Colonel Blount, I beg your pardon. You have made this plainer to me than I ever saw it before. It would be the ruin of this country if you gave over the control of your homes and property and let them be run by people like these. You have solved this problem for yourselves, and you ought to be left to solve it all the time. As for us folks from the North, we are a lot of ignorant meddlers; and as for me, I'm going home.'"

Blount fell silent, musing for a time. "Some folks say, 'Educate the negro,'" he resumed finally, "they say 'Uplift him.' They say 'Give him a chance.' So do I. I will give him more than a chance. I will let the negroes do all they can to help themselves, and I'll do the balance myself. But they can't rule me, until they are better than I am; and that's going to be a long while yet. Constitution or no constitution, government or no government, the black rule can't and don't go in the Delta! It wouldn't be right.

"Now, I'll tell you about those two poor fellows to-day," he continued. "There was Tom Sands, who works on a plantation about twelve miles from here. He has been getting drunk and beating his wife and scaring his children for about three months. Judge Williams had him up not long ago and bound him over to keep the peace, and when I last saw the judge he told me to take this negro up, if I was going by there any time, and bring him up and put him in jail for a while, until he got to behaving himself again. You know we have to do these things right along, to keep this country quiet.

"Well, when we were coming in from the hunt, we passed within a few miles of his cotton patch, and I rode over to see him. He was out in the field, and I found him and told him he had to come along. He refused to come. He swore at me—and he was not even a county surveyor in the old days! Then I ordered him in the name of the law to come along. He picked up a piece of fence rail and started at me. I had to get down off my horse to meet him. I own I struck him right hard. There was another boy, a big black negro, that must have come in here lately from some other part of the country, a big, stoop- shouldered fellow—well, he started for me, too. I took up the same piece of fence rail and knocked him down.

"I ought not to have told you this, ma'am," said Blount, rising. "But then, maybe it's just as well that I did. You never can tell what will come out of these things. We live over a black volcano in this country all the time. Now, I didn't bring in either one of my prisoners. I hoped that maybe they would take this fence rail argument as a sort of temporary equivalent to a term in jail. But to- morrow I'm going down in there and bring that Sands boy in. We never dare give an inch in a matter of this kind."

"Do you think they will make any trouble?" said Mrs. Ellison.

"Never you mind about the trouble part of it," said Blount, quietly. "I reckon he'll come in. I'm going to take a wagon this time. So that's the kind of luck we had on this b'ah hunt."

He arose to go, and left Mrs. Ellison sitting still in the shaded room, her fan now at rest, her eyes bent down thoughtfully, but her foot tapping at the floor. The incidents just related passed quickly from her mind. She remembered only that, as they talked, this man's eye had wandered from her own. He was occupied with problems of politics, of business, of sport, and was letting go that great game for a strong man, the game of love! She could scarce tell at the moment whether she most felt for him contempt or hatred—or something far different from either.

At length she arose and paced the room, swiftly as the press of strange events which were hurrying her along. Indeed, she might, without any great shrewdness, have found warning in certain things happening of late in and around the Big House; but Alice Ellison ever most loved her own fancy as counsel. The blacks might rise if they liked; Miss Lady might do as she listed, after all. Delphine and young Decherd might go their several ways; but as for her, and as for this man Calvin Blount—ah, well!

She yawned and stretched out her arms, feline, easy, graceful, and so at length sank into her easy chair, half purring as she shifted now and again to a more comfortable position.