“You can do as you please. You want to stay here and spend your share, don’t you?” “But what’ll I do with the nigger?” “I don’t care what you do with him,” was the boy’s mental reply. “So long as I get safely away from here, you and the nigger can settle the business between you in any way you see fit. That is a matter in which I am not interested.” But aloud he said: “O, we’ll get rid of him somehow. We’ll think about that when the time comes. Now, we’ll give old Jordan one more chance to earn his freedom, and if he doesn’t see fit to improve it, it is no fault of ours. He will have to go to the potato-hole and be tied up there.” Godfrey was not at all pleased with this arrangement, and he wondered why he had been foolish enough to suggest it. As much as he wanted to be rich, he would never have dared, had he been left to himself, to resort to such desperate measures as these to gain his object. The thought of it was enough to make him tremble. He wished he had never seen Clarence, or had anything to do with him. The boy was so determined to go through with what he had begun, and seemed to be so utterly reckless of consequences, that Godfrey was really afraid of him. “Say, Mr. Clarence,” said he, suddenly, “I ’most done forgot it, but it’s the gospel truth, an’ I hope I may be shot if it hain’t, that that tater-hole of mine has done fell in, an’ ain’t no more account fur tyin’ up niggers in. ’Sides, I hain’t got no ropes of no kind.” “All right, Godfrey,” said Clarence, who saw very plainly what his companion was trying to get at. “We will find out about that when we get there. But let me tell you one thing: If you think you are going to back out and leave me in the lurch, you are very much mistaken. If you will stick to me and do as I say, we shall both of us come out all right; but if you desert me, there’ll be a breeze raised here in this neighborhood that will make you think that war times have come back, sure enough. Now, Jordan,” he added, addressing the negro, “will you tell me where that barrel is?” “No, sar!--no, _sar_!” said the old man, shaking his head most decidedly. “Nobody gets dat bar’l an’ what’s into it ’ceptin’ ole Jordan!” “All right. Come with us, and we will see if we can find means to make you think differently.”