Late in the afternoon a young gentleman from an adjoining plantation came down the river in a little boat to make a friendly visit. He had been one of the guests on the day of the shoot, a dapper, talkative youth whose fund of good spirits made him welcome at all times. He liked wine and tobacco, was somewhat of a horseman and never tired of discussing questions of angling and field sports. Of course General DeKay, who cared for nothing so much as such companionship, would not let him return until after dinner. His name was Lapham. The Laphams were a fine old family--nearly all the Alabama families below the mountains are reported to be fine and old--and he retained in his speech and manner much that was ultra old and Southern, along with certain strong traces of quite modern "slang and snap," as it is called. He sat next to Mrs. Ransom at table, entertaining her and the rest with an account of some recent races at New Orleans, or Tuscaloosa, or somewhere, that he had been to see. There had been a row among some sports ending in one being killed. "It was a mean murder," he remarked, "the man was given no show. I hope the law will be swift, as in the case of your man, Colonel Reynolds." Reynolds looked at him with quick inquiry and Mrs. Ransom's face showed the shrinking of her feelings. "Oh, they got him below Selma and hanged him," added Lapham in answer to the question in Reynolds' eyes. "They made short work of it: caught him and strung him up to the first tree." "I haven't read the papers for several days," said General DeKay. "They lynched him, did they? Hanging is the popular thing now." "Yes," answered Lapham. "He deserved it, I believe. It was a bad case. Killed a young fellow who had just been married. Loved the girl himself, it is said, and did the deed out of sheer revenge, because she took the young man in preference to himself. The circumstances were atrocious. The young wife is reported to have lost her reason on account of the affair." There came a depressing silence over the little group at the table. Mrs. DeKay made haste to change the topic of conversation to one she was sure would interest the gentlemen. "Have you tried the trout since this fine weather has come?" she asked, addressing Lapham. "I should think the angling might be good now." The mention of trout (bass are called trout in the South) set the young man in the midst of one of his favorite elements. He began at once to tell how he had killed a four-pounder that very morning. He always killed four-pounders. "It was the gamiest fish I ever hooked, I think,--a regular savage. I toiled with it a full half hour before I could land it. At one time it had out nearly a hundred yards of line and I thought I never should get it checked up. If it had gone a little further my rod or my line--one would have suffered. It was jolly sport."