lative Halls. They spent over two hundred thousand dollars for furniture, and when it was appraised, its value was found to be seventeen thousand dollars at the prices they actually paid for it. The Ring stole one hundred and seventy thousand dollars on this item alone.

An appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars was made for "supplies, sundries and incidentals." With this they built a booth around the statue of Washington at the end of the Capitol and established a bar with fine liquors and cigars for the free use of the members and their friends. They kept it open every day and night during their reign, and in a suite of rooms in the Capitol they established a brothel. From the galleries a swarm of courtesans daily smiled on their favourites on the floor.

The printing had never cost the state more than eight thousand dollars in any one year. This year it cost four hundred and eighty thousand. Legree drew thousands of warrants on the state for imaginary persons. There were eight pages in the House. He drew pay for one hundred and fifty-six pages. In this way he raised an enormous corruption fund for immediate use in bribing the lawmakers to carry through his schemes.

The Railroad Ring was his most effective group of brigands.

They passed bills authorising the issue of twenty-five millions of dollars in bonds, and actually issued and stole fourteen millions, and never built one foot of railroad.

When Legree's movement was at its high tide, Ezra Perkins sought Uncle Pete Sawyer one night in behalf of a pet measure of his pending in the House.

Peter was seated by his table counting by the light of a candle three big piles of gold. His face was wreathed in smiles.

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Peter, you seem well pleased with the world tonight?" said Ezra gleefully.

"Well, brudder, you see dem piles er yaller money?" "Yes, it is a fine sight."

Uncle Pete smacked his lips and grinned from ear

to ear.

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Well, brudder, I tells you. I ben sol' seben times in my life, but 'fore Gawd dat's de fust time I ebber got de money!"

Uncle Pete dreamed that night that Congress passed a law extending the blessings of a "republican form of government" to North Carolina for forty years and that the Legislature never adjourned.

But the Legislature finally closed, and in a drunken revel which lasted all night. They had bankrupted the state, destroyed its school funds, and increased its debt from sixteen to forty-two millions of dollars, without adding one cent to its wealth or power.

Legree then organised a Municipal and County Ring to exploit the towns, cities, and counties, having passed a bill vacating all county and city offices.

This Ring secured the control of Hambright and levied a tax of twenty-five per cent for municipal purposes! Tom Camp's little home was assessed for eighty-five dollars in taxes. Mrs. Gaston's home was assessed for one hundred and sixty dollars. They could have raised a million as easily as the sum of these assessments.

It cost the United States government two hundred millions of dollars that year to pay the army required to guard the Legrees and their "loyal" men while they were thus establishing and maintaining "a republican form of government" in the South.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SECOND REIGN OF TERROR

T was the bluest Monday the Rev. John Durham ever

remembered in his ministry. A long drought had

parched the corn into twisted and stunted little stalks that looked as though they had been burnt in a prairie fire. The fly had destroyed the wheat crop and the cotton was dying in the blistering sun of August, and a blight worse than drought, or flood, or pestilence, brooded over the stricken land, flinging the shadow of its Black Death over every home. The tax gatherer of the new republican form of government," recently established in North Carolina now demanded his pound of flesh.

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The Sunday before had been a peculiarly hard one for the Preacher. He had tried by the sheer power of personal sympathy to lift the despairing people out of their gloom and make strong their faith in God. In his morning sermon he had torn his heart open and given them its red blood to drink. At the night service he could not rally from the nerve tension of the morning. He felt that he had pitiably failed. The whole day seemed a failure black and hopeless.

All day long the sorrowful stories of ruin and loss of homes were poured into his ear.

The Sheriff had advertised for sale for taxes two thousand three hundred and twenty homes in Campbell county. The land under such conditions had no value.

It was only a formality for the auctioneer to cry it and knock it down for the amount of the tax bill.

As he arose from bed with the burden of all this hopeless misery crushing his soul, a sense of utter exhaustion and loneliness came over him.

"My love, I must go back to bed and try to sleep. I lay awake last night until two o'clock. I can't eat anything," he said to his wife as she announced breakfast.

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"But you must. Come, here is something that will tone you up. I found this note under the front door this morning."

"What is it?"

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'A notice from some of your admirers that you must leave this county in forty-eight hours or take the consequences."

He looked at this anonymous letter and smiled. "Not such a failure after all, am I?" he mused. "I thought that would help you," she laughed. "Yes, I can eat breakfas: on the strength of that."

He spread this letter out beside his plate, and read and reread it as he ate, while his eyes flashed with a strange half humourous light.

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Really, that's fine, isn't it?" "You sower of sedition and rebellion, hypocrite and false prophet. The day has come to clean this county of treason and traitors. If you dare to urge the people to further resistance to authority, there will be one traitor less in this county."

"That sounds like the voice of a Daniel come to judgment, don't it?"

"I think Ezra Perkins might know something about it." "I am sure of it."

"Well, I'm duly grateful, it's done for you what your wife couldn't do, cheered you up this morning."

"That is so, isn't it? It takes a violent poison sometimes to stimulate the heart's action."

"Now if you will work the garden for me, where I've been watering it the past month, you will be yourself by dinner time."

"I will. That's about all we've got to eat. I've had no salary in two months, and I've no prospects for the next two months."

He was at work in the garden when Charlie Gaston suddenly ran through the gate toward him. His face was red, his eyes streaming with tears, and his breath coming in gasps.

"Doctor, they've killed Nelse! Mama says please come down to our house as quick as you can."

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Is he dead, Charlie?"

"He's most dead. I found him down in the woods lying in a gully, one leg is broken, there's a big gash over his eye, his back is beat to a jelly, and one of his arms is broken. We put him in the wagon, and hauled him to the house. I'm afraid he's dead now. Oh me!" The boy broke down and choked with sobs.

"Run, Charlie, for the doctor, and I'll be there in a minute."

The boy flew through the gate to the doctor's house. When the Preacher reached Mrs. Gaston's, Aunt Eve was wiping the blood from Nelse's mouth.

"De Lawd hab mussy! My po' ole man's done kilt.” "Who could have done this, Eve?'

"Dem Union Leaguers. Dey say dey wuz gwine ter kill him fur not jinin' 'em, en fur tryin' ter vote ergin 'em."

"I've been afraid of it," sighed the Preacher as he felt Nelse's pulse.