“If you will close the cabin door, Mr. Yancy, everything will be ready for next Sunday,” she said, and moved toward the horses, followed by Murrell.  Betty Malroy lingered for a moment at Hannibal’s side.

“Good-by, little boy; you must ask your Uncle Bob to bring you up to the big house to see me,” and stooping she kissed him.  “Good-by, Mr. Yancy, I liked your story.”

Hannibal and Yancy watched them mount and ride away, then the boy said: 

“Uncle Bob, now them ladies have gone, won’t you please show me them dints you made in the doorjamb?”

CHAPTER III

TROUBLE AT SCRATCH HILL

Captain Murrell had established himself at Balaam’s Cross Roads.  He was supposed to be interested in the purchase of a plantation, and in company with Crenshaw visited the numerous tracts of land which the merchant owned; but though he professed delight with the country, he was plainly in no haste to become committed to any one of the several propositions Crenshaw was eager to submit.  Later, and still in the guise of a prospective purchaser, he met Bladen, who also dealt extensively in land, and apparently if anything could have pleased him more than the region about the Cross Roads it was the country adjacent to Fayetteville.

From the first he had assiduously cultivated his acquaintance with the new owners of the Barony.  He was now on the best of terms with Nat Ferris, and it was at the Barony that he lounged away his evenings, gossiping and smoking with the planter on the wide veranda.

“The Barony would have suited me,” he told Bladen one day.  They had just returned from an excursion into the country and were seated in the lawyer’s office.

“You say your father was a friend of the old general’s?” said Bladen.

“Years ago, in the north—­yes,” answered Murrell.

“Odd, isn’t it, the way he chose to spend the last years of his life, shut off like that and seeing no one?”

Murrell regarded the lawyer in silence for a moment out of his deeply sunk eyes.

“Too bad about the boy,” he said at length slowly.

“How do you mean, Captain?” asked Bladen.

“I mean it’s a pity he has no one except Yancy to look after him,” said Murrell, but Bladen showed no interest and Murrell went on.  “Don’t you reckon he must have touched General Quintard’s life mighty close at some point?”

“Well, if so, it eluded me,” said Bladen.  “I went through General Quintard’s papers and they contained no clue to the boy’s identity that I could discover.  Fact is, the general didn’t leave much beyond an old account-book or two; I imagine that before his death he destroyed the bulk of his private papers; it looked as if he’d wished to break with the past.  His mind must have been affected.”

“Has Yancy any legal claim on the boy?” inquired Murrell.