"I dug a long hole, jest the length of a man, three feet deep, nigh about, right in the middle o' the bed, and scraped off all the plants that was left outside hit! "I wuz in a plumb muck o' sweat when I got through, hit bein' a warm night, and me awful tired to begin with. They put up a head and foot-stone, and writ somepin' on 'em about this hole a bein' the only fitten place fer a man that wuz a goin' ag'in his neighbors fer the trust. "The naixt bed we come to, them fellers _salted_. Yes, sir! The man carryin' the salt sack says: 'Clover seed and hemp seed is too high fer me to waste,--I jest brought the salt whar I had salted my hog meat down!' "After we had rid over about feefteen miles o' ground, the ring-leader, he says: 'We've been fur enough tonight, hain't we, boys? Less 'tend to the pris'ner and go home.' "I'd been turrible warm up to this time, but when he said that, Mr. Lindsay, I got as cold as a frog. "'Did we onderstand you to say you were a goin' to raise a crop o' terbaccer this year?' he says. "'Yes, sir,' I says, and I own I wuz a shakin' so, Mr. Lindsay, my voice wuzn't natural, 'I wuz a expectin' to!' "'He wuz expectin' to!' a man back in the crowd that hadn't done no talkin', put in. 'Tie him up to that thar ellum thar, boys, and give him about forty-nine!' "They drug me, a pullin' back like a hoss, and diggin' my feet in the dirt worse'n a cat, to the tree, and while they wuz a tyin' me up, one of 'em cut some long ellum switches. I seed I wuz in fer hit, and I says: 'Boys, in my County, thar hain't nobody never had no orders not to raise terbaccer.' "'Whar is your County?' the feller that advised whoopin' me, says. "'Hain't that you, Bud Baker, and don't you live in this County?' "I told 'em who I wuz, and whar I'd come from. Told 'em I wuz on my way to see my brother-in-law, Hancock Slemp, that had accidentally got bad hurt a night ridin'. Then they all laughed, and Hancock,--he wuz the very one that wanted me whooped--he said he could 'a' keeked hisse'f fer not a knowin' me. Said hit bein' so dark and him near sighted wuz the main reason he didn't. Then they all 'lowed thar wuzn't another feller so nigh like Bud Baker, in gineral build, in the State. "I tell you, they ontied me quick, and after we had rid back to Hancock's house, I went to bed, and never waked up ontil ten naixt mornin'! "Louizy, she wuz plumb proud I thought enough o' her to come to see her in her trouble, she said, but considerin' thar wuzn't no trouble on hand, she wuz glad to see me anyhow." "I reckon," mused Mr. Lindsay with a laugh, "hit couldn't be held ag'in you, the part you took in night ridin' while you was there, considerin' it wasn't of your own free will. Did Hancock do any more night ridin' while you was there?"