him, and sent him like a ball from a Paixhan gun, head foremost into
the chaff. Great was the astonishment, but greater the wrath of
Pompey, and dire the vengeance that he denounced against his
assailant. Gathering himself up, and rubbing the part battered by the
attack of his enemy, he retreated around the corner of the barn, and
procuring a rock weighing some twenty pounds, returned to the presence
of his foe, who was quietly eating the wheat that the negro had been
cleaning, evidently regarding it as the legitimate spoils of victory.
Getting down on all fours, and managing to hold the stone against his
head, Pompey challenged his enemy to combat. The buck, nothing loth,
drew back to a proper distance, and shutting both eyes, came like a
battering _ram_ against the stone on the other side of which was the
negro's head. As might have been expected, the challenger went one
way, and the challenged the other by the recoil, both knocked into
insensibility by the concussion. Pompey was taken up for dead, but his
wool and the thickness of his scull saved him. He gave the buck a wide
berth after that. He regarded him always with a sort of superstitious
awe, never being able to comprehend how he butted him through that big
stone. Explain the matter to him ever so scientifically, demonstrate
it on the clearest principles of mechanical philosophy, still Pompey
would shake his head, and as he walked away, would mutter to himself,
'de debbil helps dat ram, _sure_. Dere's no use in dis nigger's tryin'
to come round _him_. He's a witch, dat ram is, and ain't
nuffin else.'"



CHAPTER XIV.

A DEER TRAPPED--THE RESULT OF A COMBAT--A QUESTION OF MENTAL