superior, and I am, as much as any other man, in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white

race.

"This was Lincoln's position and is the position of nine-tenths of the voters of his party. It is insanity to believe that the Anglo-Saxon race at the North can ever be so blinded by passion that they can assume any other position.

"Slavery is dead for all time. It would have been destroyed whatever the end of the war. I know some of the secrets of the diplomatic history of the Confederacy. General Lee asked the government at Richmond to enlist 200,000 negroes to defend the South, which he declared was their country as well as ours, and grant them freedom on enlistment. General Lee's request was ultimately accepted as the policy of the Confederacy though too late to save its waning fortunes. Not only this, but the Confederate government sent a special ambassador to England and France and offered them the pledge of the South to emancipate every slave in return for the recognition of the independence of the Confederacy. But when the ambassador arrived in Europe, the lines of our army had been so broken, the governments were afraid to interfere.

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The man who tells you that your old masters are your enemies and may try to reinslave you is a wilful and malicious liar. "

"Hear dat, folks!" yelled old Reuben as he waved his arm grandly toward the crowd.

"To the white people here to-day, I say be of good cheer. Let politics alone for awhile and build up your ruined homes. You have boundless wealth in your soil. God will not forget to send the rain and the dew and the sun. You showed yourselves on a hundred fields ready to die for your country. Now I ask you to do

REC'O JAN

something braver and harder. Live for her when it is hard to live. Let cowards run, but let the brave stand shoulder to shoulder and build up the waste places till our country is once more clothed in wealth and beauty.

The General bowed in closing to a round of applause. His soldiers were delighted with his speech and his old slaves revelled in it with personal pride. But the rank and file of the negroes were puzzled. He did not preach the kind of doctrine they wished to hear. They had hoped freedom meant eternal rest, not work. They had dreamed of a life of ease with government rations three times a day, and old army clothes to last till they put on the white robes above and struck their golden harps in paradise. This message the General brought was painful to their newly awakened imaginations.

As the General passed through the crowd he met the Ex-Provisional Governor, Amos Hogg, busy with the organising work of his Leagues.

"Glad to see you General," said Hogg extending his hand with a smile on his leathery face.

"Well, how are you, Amos, since Macon pulled your wool? "

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Never felt better in my life, General. I want a few minutes' talk with you."

"General, you're a progressive man. Come, you're flirting with the enemy. The truly loyal men must get together to rescue the state from the rebels who have it again under their heel.”

"So Macon's a rebel because he licked you?"

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You know the rebel crowd are running this state," said Hogg.

"Why, Hogg you were the biggest fool Secessionist I ever saw, and Macon and I were staunch Union men.

We had to fight you tooth and nail. You talk about the truly loyal!"

'Yes but, General, I've repented. I've got my face turned toward the light."

"Yes, I see, the light that shines in the Governor's Mansion."

"I don't deny it. 'Great men choose greater sins, ambition's mine.' Come into this Union movement with me, Worth, and I'll make you the next Governor."

"I'll see you in hell first. No, Amos, we don't belong to the same breed. You were a Secessionist as long as it paid. When the people you had misled were being overwhelmed with ruin, and it no longer paid, you deserted and became loyal' to get an office. Now you're organising the negroes, deserters, and criminals into your secret oath-bound societies. Union men when the war came fought on one side or the other, because a Union man was a man, not a coward. If he felt his state claimed his first love, he fought for his native soil. The gang of plugs you are getting together now as 'truly loyal' are simply cowards, deserters, and common criminals who claim they were persecuted as Union men. It's a weak lie."

We'll win," urged Hogg.

"Never!" the General snorted, and angrily turned on his heel. Before leaving he wheeled suddenly, faced Hogg and said,

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Go on with your fool societies. You are sowing the wind. There'll be a lively harvest. I am organising too. I'm organising a cotton mill, rebuilding our burned factory, borrowing money from the Yankees who licked us to buy machinery and give employment to thousands of our poor people. That's the way to save the state. We've got water power enough to turn the wheels of the world."

"You'll need our protection in the fight that's coming," replied Hogg, with a straight look that meant much. Then he shook his

The General was silent a moment. fist in Hogg's face and slowly said,

"Let me tell you something. When I need protection I'll go to headquarters. I've got Yankee money in my mills and I can get more if I need it. You lay your dirty claws on them and I'll break your neck.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN OR BRUTE IN EMBRYO

IWO months later General Worth, while busy rebuilding his mills at Independence, had served

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on him a summons to appear before the Agent of the Freedman's Bureau at Hambright and answer the charge of using "abusive language" to a freedman.

The particular freedman who desired to have his feelings soothed by law was a lazy young negro about sixteen years old whom the General had ordered whipped and sent from the stables into the fields on one occasion during the war while on a visit to his farm. Evidently the boy had a long memory.

"Now don't that beat the devil!" exclaimed the General.

"What is it?" asked his foreman.

"I've got to leave my work, ride on an old freight train thirty miles, pull through twenty more miles of red mud in a buggy to get to Hambright, and lose four days, to answer such a charge as that before some little wizeneyed skunk of a Bureau Agent. My God, it's enough to make a Union man remember Secession with regrets!

"My stars, General, we can't get along without you now when we are getting this machinery in place. Send a lawyer," growled the foreman.

"Can't do it, John-I'm charged with a crime."

"Do the best you can, I'll be back in four days, if