Transcriber’s Note: The reader may wish to be warned that this book contains racial stereotyping more than usually unpleasant even by the standards of its time. Read as far as the Dedication and use that to decide whether or not you want to continue. [Illustration: “The brutalized features of Walter Burton were revealed.” Frontispiece] BLOOD WILL TELL THE STRANGE STORY OF A SON OF HAM BY BENJ. RUSH DAVENPORT AUTHOR OF Blue and Gray, Uncle Sam’s Cabins, Anglo-Saxons, Onward, Etc. Illustrations by J.H. Donahey CLEVELAND Caxton Book Co. 1902 Copyright by Benj. Rush Davenport 1902 All rights reserved DEDICATION To all Americans who deem purity of race an all-important element in the progress of our beloved country. THE AUTHOR For obvious reasons the date of this story is not given ... List of Illustrations “The brutalized features of Walter Burton were revealed. Frontispiece “Lucy passed her soft, white arm around her grandfather’s neck.” Page 108 “He recklessly rushed in front of Burton.” Page 286 “Lucy, I have always loved you.” Page 340 BLOOD WILL TELL I. Boston was shrouded in a mantle of mist that November day, the north-east wind bringing at each blast re-enforcement to the all-enveloping and obscuring mass of gloom that embraced the city in its arms of darkness. Glimmering like toy candles in the distance, electric lights, making halos of the fog, marked a pathway for the hurrying crowds that poured along the narrow, crooked streets of New England’s grand old city. In one of the oldest, narrowest and most crooked thoroughfares down near the wharfs a light burning within the window of an old-fashioned building brought to sight the name “J. Dunlap” and the words “Shipping and Banking.” No living man in Boston nor the father of any man in Boston had ever known a day when passing that old house the sign had not been there for him to gaze upon and lead him to wonder if the Dunlap line would last unbroken forever.