couldn't come very fas'. De ole wrapper cotch de wind."

"Who was it?" asked Tony.

"I seed him a-runnin'. Bress my soul! de dog like to got him!"

"But who was he, Uncle Braddock?" said Mr. Loudon, who had just reached
the store from his house, where Kate, who had run home, had told the
story. "Do you know him?"

"Know him? Reckon I does?" said Uncle Braddock, "an' de dog ud a knowed
him too, ef he'd a cotched him! Dat's so, Mah'sr John."

"Well, tell us his name, if you know him," said Mr. Darby.

"Ob course, I knows him," said Uncle Braddock. "I'se done knowed him fur
twenty or fifty years. He's George Mason."

The announcement of this name caused quite a sensation in the party.

"I thought he was down in Mississippi," said one man.

"So he was; I reckons," said Uncle Braddock, "but he's done come back
now. I'se seed him afore to-day, and Aunt Matilda's seed him, too. Yah,
ha! Dat dere dog come mighty nigh cotchin' him!"

George Mason had been quite a noted character in that neighborhood five
or six years before. He belonged to a good family, but was of a lawless
disposition and was generally disliked by the decent people of the
county. Just before he left for the extreme Southern States, it was