searched the yard carefully, and under the cedar by the window he saw the barefoot tracks of a negro. The white man was never born who could make that track. The enormous heel projected backward, and in the hollow of the instep where the dirt would scarcely be touched by an Aryan was the deep wide mark of the African's flat foot. He carefully measured it, brought from an outhouse a box, and fastened it over the spot.
It might have been an ordinary chicken-thief, of course. He could not tell, but it was a fact of big import. A sudden hope flashed through his mind that they might have risen with the sun and strolled to their favourite haunt at Lover's Leap.
In two minutes he was there, gazing with hard-set eyes at Marion's hat and handkerchief lying on the shelving rock.
The mare bent her glistening neck, touched the hat with her nose, lifted her head, dilated her delicate nostrils, looked out over the cliff with her great soft half-human eyes, and whinnied gently.
Ben leaped to the ground, picked up the handkerchief and looked at the initials, "M. L." worked in the corner. He knew what lay on the river's brink below as well as if he stood over the dead bodies. He kissed the letters of her name, crushed the handkerchief in his locked hands, and cried:
"Now, Lord God, give me strength for the service of my people!"
He hurriedly examined the ground, amazed to find no
