Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/109

 native state to the mountains of Western North Carolina and kept out of the armies, was there. He had settled in Hambright and hoped at least to get the post-office under the new dispensation.

In the group was the full blooded negro, Tim Shelby. He had belonged to the Shelbys of Kentucky, but had escaped through Ohio into Canada before the war. He had returned home with great expectations of revolutions to follow in the wake of the victorious armies of the North. He had been disappointed in the programme of kindliness and mercy that immediately followed the fall of the Confederacy; but he had been busy day and night since the war in organising the negroes, in secretly furnishing them arms and wherever possible he had them grouped in military posts and regularly drilled. He was elated at the brilliant prospects which Legree's report from Washington opened.

"Glorious news you bring us, brother!" he exclaimed as he slapped Legree on the back.

"Yes, and it's straight."

"Did Mr. Stevens tell you so?"

"He's the man that told me."

"Well, you can tie to him. He's the master now that rules the country," said Tim with enthusiasm.

"You bet he's runnin' it. He showed me his bill to confiscate the property of the rebels and give it to the truly loyal and the niggers. It's a hummer. You ought to have seen the old man's eyes flash fire when he pulled that bill out of his desk and read it to me."

"When will he pass it?"

"Two years, yet. He told me the fools up North were not quite ready for it; and that he had two other bills first, that would run the South crazy and so fire the North that he could pass anything he wanted and hang old Andy Johnson besides."