The colonel did not hesitate a moment. He had gone into this fight for
Johnson--or rather to please Miss Laura. He had risen now to higher
game; nothing less than the system would satisfy him.
"But, Colonel," said Caxton, "it's pretty hard on the nigger. They'll
kill him before his time's up. If you'll give me a free hand, I'll get
him anyway."
"How?"
"Perhaps it's just as well you shouldn't know. But I have friends at
Sycamore."
"You wouldn't break the law?" asked the colonel.
"Fetters is breaking the law," replied Caxton. "He's holding Johnson
for debt--and whether that is lawful or not, he certainly has no right
to kill him."
"You're right," replied the colonel. "Get Johnson away, I don't care
how. The end justifies the means--that's an argument that goes down
here. Get him away, and send him a long way off, and he can write for
his wife to join him. His escape need not interfere with our other
plans. We have plenty of other cases against Fetters."
Within a week, Johnson, with the connivance of a bribed guard, a
poor-white man from Clarendon, had escaped from Fetters and seemingly
vanished from Beaver County. Fetters's lieutenants were active in
their search for him, but sought in vain.
_Twenty-eight_
Ben Dudley awoke the morning after the assembly ball, with a violent
headache and a sense of extreme depression, which was not relieved by
the sight of his reflection in the looking-glass of the bureau in the
hotel bedroom where he found himself.
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