Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/434

 negro you have brought here and take my chances of detection."

Halliday gave up the task, returned to New York, and sought the aid of the greatest labour leader in America, who had arrived in the city from the West the day before.

"No, Halliday," he said emphatically. "Send your negro back down South. We don't want any more of them, or to come in contact with them. I have just come from the West where a desperate strike was in progress in one of Legree's mines. Our men were toiling in the depth of the earth in midnight darkness, never seeing the light of day, for just enough to keep body and soul together. They tried to wring one little concession from their absent master, who had never condescended to honour them with his presence. What did he do? Shut down his mines, and brought up from the South a herd of negroes who came crowding to the mines to push our men back into hell. We begged them to go home and let us alone. They grinned, shuffled and looked at their white driver for the signal to go to work. I ordered the men to shoot them down like dogs. We made the Governor issue a proclamation driving them back South and warning their race that if they attempted to enter the borders of the state he would meet them with Gatling guns.

"No, send your friend South. The winters up here are too cold for him and the summers too hot."

In the meantime Harris walked the streets with a storm of furious passion raging in his soul. The realisation of the shame and the horror of his position! He was the son of Eliza Harris who had fled from the kindliest form of slavery in Kentucky. He had a trained mind, and the brightest gifts of musical genius. Yet he stood that day at the door of Simon Legree and begged in vain for the privilege of serving in the meanest capacity as