Fitz read in their faces these mental processes, and was more determined than ever to break up at once what he called "the settlement."

"Are you sho', Colonel," inquired Ker-foot, catching at straws, "that the coal lands lie entirely on yo' father's property? Does not the Barbour lan' jine yo's on the hill?"

"I am not positively sho', suh, but I have always understood that what we call the coal hills belonged to my father. You see," said the colonel, turning to the agent, "this grade of wild lan' is never considered of much value with us, and a few hundred acres mo' or less is never insisted on among old families of our standin' whose estates jine."

Yancey expanded his vest, and said authoritatively that he was quite sure the coal hills were on the Barbour property. He had shot partridges over that land many a time.

The agent, who had listened calmly to the discussion, remarked dryly that until the colonel definitely ascertained whether he had any lands to sell it would be a useless waste of time to make the trip.

"Quite so," said Kerfoot, raising the emptied decanter to his eye, and replacing it again with a look at Yancey expressive of the contempt in which he held a man who could commit so mean an act.

"But, Colonel," said Fitz, "can't you telegraph to-morrow and find out?"

"To whom, my clear Fitz? It would take a week to get the clerk of the co'te to look through the records. n.o.body at Bar-hour's knows."

"Does Miss Nancy know?"

The colonel shook his head dubiously.

Fitz's face suddenly lighted up as he started from his seat, and caught the colonel by the arm.

"Does Chad?"

"Chad! Yes, Chad might."

Fitz nearly overturned his chair in his eagerness to reach the top ofthe kitchen stairs.

"Come up here, Chad, quick as your legs can carry you--two steps at a time!"

Chad hurried into the room with the face of a man sent for to put out a fire.

"Chad," said the colonel, "you know the big hill as you go up from the marsh at home?"

"Yes, sah."

"Whose lan' is the coal on, mine or Jedge Barbour's?"

The old darky's face changed from an expression of the deepest anxiety to an effort at the deepest thought. The change was so sudden that the wrinkles got tangled up in the attempt, resulting in an expression of vague uncertainty.

"You mean, Colonel, de hill whar we cotch de big c.o.o.n?"

"Yes," said the colonel encouragingly, ignorant of the c.o.o.n, but knowing that there was only one hill.

"Well, Jedge Barbour's n.i.g.g.e.rs always said dat de c.o.o.n was dere c.o.o.n, 'ca'se he was treed on dere lan', and we 'sputed dat it was our c.o.o.n, 'ca'se it was on our lan'."

"Who got de c.o.o.n?" asked Fitz.

"Oh, _we_ got the c.o.o.n!" And Chad's eyes twinkled.

"That settles it. It's your land, Colonel," said Fitz, with one of his sudden roars, in which everybody joined but Chad and the judge.

"But den, gemmen,"--Chad was a little uncomfortable at the merriment,--"it was our c.o.o.n for sho. I knowed whar de line went, 'ca'se I he'p Marsa John caarry de spy-gla.s.s when he sold de woodlan's to Jedge Barbour, an' de c.o.o.n was on our side ob dat line."

If Chad's first statement caused nothing but laughter, the second produced nothing but the profoundest interest.

Here was the surveyor himself!

The colonel turned the map to Chad's side of the table. Every man in the room stood up and craned his head forward.

"Now, Chad," said the colonel, "this map is a plan of our lan'--same as if you were lookin' down on it. Here is the road to Caartersville.

See that square, black mark? That's Caarter Hall. This is the marsh, and that is the coal hill. Now, standin' here in the marsh,--this is where our line begins, Fitz,--standin' here, Chad, in the marsh, which side of the line is that hill on? Mine or Jedge Barbour's?"

The old man bent over the table, and scanned the plan closely.

"Wat's dis blue wiggle lookin' like a big fish-wum?"

"That's the Tench River."

Chad continued his search, his wrinkled brown hand, with its extended forefinger capped by its stumpy nail, looking for all the world like a mud turtle with head out crawling over the crumpled surface of the map.

"Scuse me till I run down to de kitchen an' git my spec's. I can't see like"--

"Here, take mine!" said Fitz, handing him his gold ones. He would have lent him his eyes if he could have found that coal-field the sooner.

The turtle crawled slowly up, its head thrust out inquiringly, inched along the margin of the map, and backed carefully down again, pausing for such running commentaries as "Dis yer's de ribber;" "Dat's de road;" "Dis de ma'sh."

The group was now a compact ma.s.s, every eye watching Chad's finger as though it were a divining rod--Fitz full of smothered fears lest after all the prize should slip from his grasp; the agent anxious but reserved; Yancey and the judge hovering between hope and despair, with eyes on the empty decanter; and last of all the colonel, on the outside, holding a candle himself, so that his guests might see the better--the least interested man in the room.

Presently the finger stopped, and Chad looked up into his master's face.

"If I was down dar, Marsa George, jes a minute, I could tole ye, 'ca'se I reckelmember de berry tree whar Marsa John had de spygla.s.s sot on its legs. I held de pole on de rock way up yander on de hill, an' in dat berry rock Marsa John done cut a crotch."

"And which way is the crotch in the rock from the marsh here?" asked Fitz eagerly.

Chad stood up, looked at the plan glistening under the candlelight, paused an instant, then took off the gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, and handed them with great deference to Fitz.

"'T ain't no use, Marsa George. I kin go frough dat ma'sh blindfolded in de night an' cotch a possum airy time along airy one ob dem fences; but dis yer foolin' wid lan's on paper is too much for Chad. 'Fo'

Gawd, I doan' know!"

CHAPTER XI

_Chad on his own Cabin Floor_

The night after the eventful dinner in Bedford Place, the colonel, accompanied by his guests, had alighted at a dreary way station, crawled into a lumbering country stage, and with Chad on the box as pilot, had stopped before a great house with ghostly trailing vines and tall chimneys outlined against the sky.

When I left my room on the following morning the sunlight was pouring through the big colonial window, and the breath of the delicious day, laden with the sweet smell of bending blossoms, floated in through the open blinds.