At the next corner lay the body of another man, with the red blood oozing from a ghastly wound in the forehead.  The negroes seemed to have been killed, as the band plays in circus parades, at the street intersections, where the example would be most effective.  Miller, with a wild leap of the heart, had barely passed this gruesome spectacle, when a sharp voice commanded him to halt, and emphasized the order by covering him with a revolver.  Forgetting the prudence he had preached to others, he had raised his whip to strike the horse, when several hands seized the bridle.

“Come down, you damn fool,” growled an authoritative voice.  “Don’t you see we’re in earnest?  Do you want to get killed?”

“Why should I come down?” asked Miller.  “Because we’ve ordered you to come down!  This is the white people’s day, and when they order, a nigger must obey.  We’re going to search you for weapons.”

“Search away.  You’ll find nothing but a case of surgeon’s tools, which I’m more than likely to need before this day is over, from all indications.”

“No matter; we’ll make sure of it!  That’s what we’re here for.  Come down, if you don’t want to be pulled down!”

Miller stepped down from his buggy.  His interlocutor, who made no effort at disguise, was a clerk in a dry-goods store where Miller bought most of his family and hospital supplies.  He made no sign of recognition, however, and Miller claimed no acquaintance.  This man, who had for several years emptied Miller’s pockets in the course of more or less legitimate trade, now went through them, aided by another man, more rapidly than ever before, the searchers convincing themselves that Miller carried no deadly weapon upon his person.  Meanwhile, a third ransacked the buggy with like result.  Miller recognized several others of the party, who made not the slightest attempt at disguise, though no names were called by any one.

“Where are you going?” demanded the leader.

“I am looking for my wife and child,” replied Miller.

“Well, run along, and keep them out of the streets when you find them; and keep your hands out of this affair, if you wish to live in this town, which from now on will be a white man’s town, as you niggers will be pretty firmly convinced before night.”

Miller drove on as swiftly as might be.  At the next corner he was stopped again.  In the white man who held him up, Miller recognized a neighbor of his own.  After a short detention and a perfunctory search, the white man remarked apologetically:—­

“Sorry to have had to trouble you, doctuh, but them’s the o’ders.  It ain’t men like you that we’re after, but the vicious and criminal class of niggers.”

Miller smiled bitterly as he urged his horse forward.  He was quite well aware that the virtuous citizen who had stopped him had only a few weeks before finished a term in the penitentiary, to which he had been sentenced for stealing.  Miller knew that he could have bought all the man owned for fifty dollars, and his soul for as much more.