"
"Whereabouts?" says I.
"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway
nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"
"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two
ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me to lay
down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard
to come out."
"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.
He run off f'm down South, som'ers."
"It's a good job they got him."
"Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like
picking up money out'n the road."
"Yes, it is--and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
FIRST. Who nailed him?"
"It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in him for
forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think
o' that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year."
"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth no
more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't
straight about it."
"But it IS, though--straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It
tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells the
plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS.
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