"He 'lowed too, he didn't no ways expect no night riders in this County, on account o' this not bein' a regular terbaccer County, and the Equity not havin' tuck much holt here, but he'd feel safeter, ef them canvases wuz dyed! Yes, sir, old lady, he's skeered some. Hit tickled me to hear him talk, and I brung the dye along to please him, although I hain't no notion thar's any need o' usin' hit. "Thar hain't no doubt about hit, though, a good many them Independent raisers that's refused to sign the agreement not to raise no terbaccer this year, _is_ a havin' their plant beds tore up and some their barns burnt. Thar's a heap in the papers about hit, hain't thar, Mr. Lindsay?" Mr. Doggett appealed to Mr. Lindsay who had just come in. Mr. Lindsay nodded. "I jest got a letter from my cousin over in Woodford, tellin' about the night ridin' there. She says the people there thenks the terbaccer trust is hirin' a good many tough fellers to burn barns,--and a layin' hit on the Equity, a tryin' to destroy the Equity's credit. He says the people think the trust men actually destroyed some of their own ware-houses, jest to discredit the Equity." "Yes, sir," Mr. Doggett agreed, "and a heap o' the mischeef is a bein' done by mean fellers that sees a chance to git in some spite work on other fellers they are enemies to, without bein' cotched up with, like hit wuz in time o' the war, when a heap o' devilment they never thought o' doin', wuz laid on the soldiers! Hain't that so, Mr. Lindsay? You remember them times, don't you?" Mr. Lindsay signified that he did. "Mr. Brock says that he don't believe they're a goin' to tech this County," broke in Mrs. Doggett: "he says ef they do though, they'll have to whoop him about three times a day before he'll quit! And, speakin' o' angels,"--a look of intense pleasure enveloped Mrs. Doggett: "thar comes Mr. Brock, now. And what's he fetchin'? Hit's a newspaper, hain't hit, Eph?" Mr. Brock proved the bearer of bad news. A paragraph in a New York paper he had gotten at the Castle house, stated that in Bracken County, Kentucky, a tobacco planter had killed two negroes, and shot off both arms of a white man who he had caught scraping his plant beds. The name of the white man was given as Hancock Slemp, and the paper further stated that he was in a precarious condition. Hancock Slemp was no other than Mr. Doggett's brother-in-law, his sister's husband. Mrs. Doggett was much affected by the news, but Mr. Doggett suggested that it might not be true. "Sence the boys fooled me, I jest don't know what to believe _is_ so!" he exclaimed. "Do you reckon hit's so, Mr. Brock?" Mr. Brock did not know, but gave it as his opinion that it was true.