"Wait till I have dressed," I answered. "I sight. I don' know whether the man is dead; will be out in ten minutes."

"But it's mighty pressin', Boss," he insisted. "It's something that's following me up mighty sharp. I wants to speak to you now."

"Go on," I assented, and letting him into the room, proceeded to dress in his presence. "Did you ever hear of me-Cato Allums ?" he asked. "Cap'n Bray was a mighty good friend to me, and holped me powerful. If you've got his papers, I reckon you'll find my name on 'em. I'm the man that was robbed by a gang from old Jimmy Johnson's house last year; robbed of two thousan' poun's of meat and a heap of other things. Cap'n Bray took up for me-the Lord A'mighty bless him for his friendship to me! I wish he was here now. That was some of old Jimmy Johnson's mischief. But I won't talk about that ar. I've got a worse trial on hand. It's been a bad night for me, Boss-I don't know what your title is. I'll tell you how it happened. Last night, after we was all in bed-me and my brother-in-law and his wife and children-comes a rap at the door. Well, ye see I've been so hunted and robbed by these yere bushwhackers that I wasn't gwine to let nobody in without knowing who 'twas; and so says I, 'Who's thar?' I couldn' make out much what they said, though they said something-kind o' muttered, like they didn' want to show who they was. Then I gets up and goes to the door with my revolver in my hand: Cap'n Bray give me the revolver; he did, Boss, and told me to shoot any man, white or black, that attacked me; he said he'd see me out in it. Who's thar?' says I. They kep knocking, and didn' speak. Then I looked out of the cracks in the logs, and made out by the moon that thar was five or six of 'em. Says I, 'You can't come in yere unless I know who you be.' Then they begun to drive at the do' with a log, and jest as it give in I heard one of 'em say, 'Break it down and shoot every boogar of 'em.' Well, Boss, when the do' come down I jumped out to run; I reckoned they was the same men that had robbed me befo', and had come now to kill me; for many and many has said to me, 'Cato, they'll bushwhack you yet for following 'em up so.' Jest as I jumped out, one of 'em fired and missed me. Then I saw another aiming at me, with his pistol resting on his arm. Boss, I" (here his face quivered, and he looked at me with indescribable anxiety)-"I shot him."

all I knows is that he fell over when I shot; I don' know who he was-don' know any of 'em." "Where did this happen?" I inquired.

"Over in the edge of Pickens District, about ten miles from yere, and two miles from old Jimmy Johnson's settlement; and that's whar all my troubles has started from, Boss; that old Jimmy Johnson has been a sore neighbor for me.

An hour later, seated in my office, I made a further investigation into the case of Cato Allums. I found a file of papers, signed by one of my predecessors, showing that Cato had indeed been robbed about a year previous, and that the efforts of the military authorities had not been able to discover the malefactors, although "old Jimmy Johnson," the supposed instigator of the mischief; had been arrested and confined for a season in Castle Pinckney at Charleston. While I was studying into these by-gone matters Cato stepped out in search of an acquaintance to vouch for his character. He returned with one of those devil-may-care, dissipated-looking youths whom one so frequently meets at the South, and who have the air of being a cross between the Plug-Ugly, the fine gentleman, and the professional gambler. "Major, this boy is sound," asseverated the stranger, with many oaths. "He's a square, decent, sensible, polite nigger. I've known Cato ever since I was a baby, and I never had but one thing against him. He's just as civil a nigger as need be. No gentleman ever had cause to quarrel with him in no way, shape, nor manner. Wherever Cato goes, if he meets a gentleman, he offs hat and say good-morning; and if he sees a gentleman coming across the fields he puts down the bars for him; just as polite, decent a nigger, Major, as you can find! I'll allow that Cato is sharp on a trade; if you go to swapping horses with him you've got to keep your eye skinned; he an't agoing to make money for you out of his own pocket."

"Well, I s'pose a man has a right to look out for himself," suggested the negro, apologetically.

"That's so, Cato," assented the youngster. "I han't got a word to say against you on that account. If ever you trade horses with me you are welcome to cheat me, if you can. I tell you, Major, I've only one thing against Cato. They do say he kept a white woman for his wife or something. I don't know how it is, whether "You did?" I answered. "It's my belief it's so or not; only I do say that if he did that that you served him perfectly right."

He drew a long breath, sat down in a chair to which I had previously signed him, seemed to rest his jaded soul for a moment, and then continued his story:

"Boss, you don' know how I felt that minute; I never shot a man befo'. But I couldn' stop to think about it. I run with all my might for the road, they a-shooting after me, and one bullet hitting the fence as I jumped it; and in a minute or two I was in the woods and out of

he did wrong. Yes, Cato, if you did that you did wrong, and I can't uphold you in it."

"They said so," admitted Cato, who had looked monstrously uneasy under this charge. "But when the woman had a baby a while ago it was just as white and pretty a baby as ever you saw. It wa'n't no nigger's baby.'

"Well, if that's so, it's all right. I an't down on you, Cato, about it, if it an't as they say 'tis. As for killing this man last night I don't know any thing about it, in no way, shape, nor man

ner.

I don't know who the man is, nor what he was thar for. But I'll bet ten dollars, Major, that Cato served him right in shooting him. I'll swap horses even with Cato on that. I say, Cato, whenever you want to trade your sorrel mare, let me know."

they'd jest hang me. I tell you, it's mighty resky."

After a long discussion he consented to return home and report himself to the nearest magistrate. I gave him a letter to the official, in which I stated the matter as it appeared to me, representing it as an attack of burglars upon the house of a peaceful citizen, and demanding that the gang should be traced, arrested, and punished.

"The point now is to reach your magistrate before any further bloodshed takes place," I said to him as he rose to leave. "Can you get home safely?"

"We must see," I replied. "I could protect you now, no doubt; but my protection would not last for long; in a year or two the Bureau and the garrisons will go. If your case Meanwhile I was pondering as to what I is not brought to a settlement now, it will be should do with my homicide. A few months then. Settle it at once, while the Yankees are later I should have suspended my judgment here to see that you have justice. Don't put with regard to the truth of his story until aft-yourself in the position of an outlaw, subject to er I had heard the other side, and examined be hunted for life." somewhat into the evidence. But in my present state of inexperience I believed Cato Allums; believed that his house had been broken open by men who might be assassins, and were unquestionably burglars; believed that he was a worthy applicant for such protection and counsel as lay in the Freedmen's Bureau. But it was a dubious and critical matter to handle. On the one hand I wanted to make sure that this man should not fall a victim to any burst of popular fury, and that the bushwhackers who had outraged him should be brought to condign punishment. On the other hand I so interpreted my orders as to believe that my first and great duty lay in raising the blacks and restoring the whites of my district to a confidence in civil law, and thus fitting both as rapidly as possible to assume the duties of citizenship. If the military power were to rule them forever-if it were to settle all their difficulties without demanding of them any exercise of judgment or self-control, how could they ever be, in any profound and lasting sense, "reconstructed?" If there were to be any beginning in this essential work, it might as well come at once. Leaving Cato locked up in my office, I called on the leading lawyer of the Greenville bar, well known throughout the country as Governor Perry, but not then noted as an opponent of the Congressional plan of reconstruction; and after relating to him the case of Cato Allums, asked him if the civil authorities could be trusted to manage it with firmness and justice.

"They can," he assured me. "If the magistrate of this man's neighborhood is not fit for his post, you can refer it to the solicitor of the district court, Mr. Jacob Reed, of Anderson. You may be sure that he will do the same justice by a negro as by a white man.

Returning to Cato, I told him that he must go home, apply to his magistrate as an injured and innocent man, make a formal complaint against the persons who had molested him, and demand an investigation. He looked exceedingly gloomy, and answered, "But, Boss, what if they should arrest me?"

"You must let yourself be arrested, if they do it according to the forms of law. Killing a man is serious business, and can not be passed over without grave notice."

"Oh, if you knew how many men had been shot up our way, and nothing said! Jest shot down, Master, right in thar own do's, and no law about it! I tell you, Boss, I don't like to be tried. They'd make believe try me, and

"Oh yes!" he laughed. "I knows every road and cross-cut. It would be mighty hard to trap me, Boss. And if any man does git a holt on me," he added, pointing to his revolver, "he'll let go agin in a hurry."

During the next three days I had many fears for Cato Allums. Pickens District is a vast region of hills and mountains, wild in its landscape, and hardly less wild in the character of many of its inhabitants, always noted for displays of individual pugnacity, and stained since the advent of secession with the blood of several Unionists. I feared that I had sent this man to sure destruction at the hands of the bushwhackers who then infested South Carolina, or of a mob of citizens roused to fury by the spectacle of a white slain by a negro. On the fourth day my anxiety was somewhat relieved by the appearance of a Pickens farmer, in homespun, who delivered a letter from James Parsons, the magistrate of the "beat" in which Cato lived. From the letter and the messenger I gleaned the following facts with regard to the outrage. The gang which attacked Cato's house consisted of five "mean whites" from Anderson District, who, with the usual disregard of their caste for Poor Richard's axiom that time is money, had ridden no less than twenty-four miles to effect their picayune stroke of business. Of course they had their side of the story to tell; they had gone to Cato's place, they said, to recover a pistol which he had stolen from one of their number; they had knocked civilly at his door, and had only broken it in when he threatened to shoot them.

The letter added that Jack Williams, the injured man, had received a ball through the intestines, and was lying at the house of a neighbor of Parsons, in great agony and near to death. He had made his affidavit that he meant no harm to Cato Allums, and that, so far from aiming a pistol, he was endeavoring to escape when overtaken by the fatal bullet.

“It's a tough lot, I reckon," commented the | law, and who knew little more of it than if he messenger. "Willums's wife has come up to were a native of the Marquesas. It was hard see him, an' she told him it served him right work to make a fellow whose neck was in danfor meddlin' with a nigger." ger understand the deliberate wisdom of that The letter went on to state that, as soon as sequence of the coroner's jury, the grand jury, Williams should die, a coroner's jury would be and the criminal jury; and Cato had more obempanneled, and that, according to the civil jections to the safety and sagacity of the prolaw, the verdict of the jury would decide wheth-cess than I can now remember; but the suber Cato should or should not be prosecuted as stance of them was that he did not believe in a criminal.

The next morning Cato arrived on his sorrel of us, Major." mare, revolver in belt.

"Well, Master, they're boun' to be the death | visit, bringing the information that Cato had of me," he said. They've brought me in surrendered himself and was in Pickens Court guilty without tryin' me. And now, if they House jail. kin ketch me, they'll hang me up to the first tree.

yet he surrenders himself to trial, as becomes a by a black ruffian; but the men of Pickens good citizen. Do you show that you can pro- District had shown themselves to be a lawtect him in your jail and try him justly before abiding race, and the prisoner had not been your courts. The Northern people doubt wheth-lynched. er you can give a negro a white man's chance. Show that you can do it. It will be a great triumph for you; it will disprove a grave suspicion. You can not take a surer step toward recovering your rights as citizens."

My magistrate was a farmer, a plain and apparently a poor man, dressed in homespun, mild and grave in manner, and, as I judged, thoroughly honorable in his intentions.

"I understand the importance of doing this matter justly and according to the forms of law," he said. "I am very much obliged to you for trusting me with it, instead of managing it by means of the garrison. I believe we can show you that we mean to be as fair to a nigger as we know how to be to a white man. There is some excitement among us now; there are some fellows who are right mad at the idea of a nigger shooting a white man; and I told Cato that it was best for him to go to jail for that reason. You see, if he was not sent to jail, people would say niggers have a better chance than white folks, and would get madder than they are now, and perhaps lynch him. Yes, I allow there's some excitement; but it will blow over before long. Some folks are mighty pleased with Cato already for surrendering himself."

The case waited; the State solicitor was anxious to get it off the docket; but where were the witnesses for the prosecution? No one had been present at the tragedy but the five friends of the dead man and Cato Allums's own relatives; and from the nature of the circumstances, as well as from the ties of blood and race, these last would undoubtedly testify in favor of the prisoner. The five gentlemen from Anderson had been duly summoned, and in vain; a bench-warrant was issued for their apprehension-still in the character of witnesses. But Mr. Jack Williams's nocturnal comrades were that kind of men who, to use a Southern country-phrase, "have no use for a court-house." The more they were called on to "come to court,” the further and faster they went from it. The constable dispatched to find them returned to say that they were "lying out in the swamps;" and presently it was reported that they had "done gone out of the country.'

This fact turned public opinion at once; the tale of the stolen pistol was dismissed from popular credence, and Cato Allums was decided to have done the duty of a good citizen in shooting a scoundrel. As Pickens District had shown itself law-abiding, so did it show itself amenable to reason and considerate in senti

"But what have you done about the bushwhackers?" I asked. “Have you tried to ar-ment; many of the men who had insisted upon rest them ?"

"They have put back to Anderson, where they belong, and that is out of my jurisdiction. I have sent on a statement of the case to the magistrate of their settlement, and asked him to take action in it. I can't do more."

"But don't you think your coroner's jury was a little severe on Cato ?" I continued. "Don't you think Cato would have been cleared at once, if he had been white and Williams black?"

"No, Major, I don't think so," he answered, firmly. "Killing a man is severe business, any how, and ought to be thoroughly looked into. At any rate, the process has all been according to law, and even a nigger can't ask more, nor less."

the prosecution now besieged the court to have the prisoner dismissed from further action; and among the most urgent of these was the magistrate who had committed him-Squire Parsons.

"I can not throw the case out at once," replied the solicitor. "It is my duty to hold it over till the next sessions, and see if these witnesses can not be made to appear. But the man shall be admitted to bail. I will advise that any bail be accepted which he can give."

This was

So Cato Allums was bailed out for the low amount of one thousand dollars, on the security of his brother-in-law, a mulatto, who probably was not worth half that money. substantially the end of the matter, for Jack Williams's friends persisted in keeping themselves retired from the public gaze, and at the next sessions Cato was informed that he need not trouble himself further about coming to court. Somewhat disgusted at having been imprisoned and put to various costs in his own defense, he removed to East Tennessee; but, having farmed it there during one season, he got homesick for his native "settlement," and came back to live among his old neighbors.

This being clearly irrefutable, I could only express my commendation of Mr. Parsons's course, and urge him to be energetic in keeping the affair within the legal channel. Meantime I had forwarded a statement of Cato Allums's case to Major-General Scott, the Assistant Commissioner of South Carolina, and had received a reply approving my action. A month or so later the Circuit Court of Special Sessions and Common Pleas convened at Pickens Court House. There had been an inflammatory par- "I han't nothing to complain of," he anagraph or two from those veteran blowhards swered. "Every body is friendly, and the men and professional mischief-makers, the "sound that wanted me tried is the friendliest of all. Southern editors;" the manly act of Cato Al- But, Master, I never was treated like most niglums in shooting a burglar had been described gers was. Mighty few white men has tried to as the unprovoked murder of a worthy citizen | ride over Cato."

"How are you treated?" I asked him, when he called upon me after his return.

He was a fine, stalwart, vigorous fellow, as of the surrender down to a little before my arstrong as a mule physically, and with plenty of rival in Greenville, this northwestern portion moral muscle, all qualities which command the of South Carolina had been disturbed by the respect of the general Southerner. Even his misdemeanors of two noted bushwhackers or sharpness in trading horses was calculated to desperadoes named Largent and Joly, ex-solwin him the admiration of the chaffering farm-diers of the Confederate army. Joly, a native ers of Pickens District. After telling me, with of Spartanburg District, South Carolina, and a some triumph, of certain of his successful dick- | farmer by occupation, had lost a brother in the ers, he added: "But I don't always get the war, and had avenged his death by taking a best of it; I was mightily come up with last hand in the murder of some straggling Union spring when I was gwine to Tennessee. Ye soldiers after the proclamation of peace. Larsee, I sent over part of my traps by my brother- gent had been, it was reported, a Baltimore in-law and a friend of his'n. They begged me Plug-Ugly; but when I inquired about him of a to lend um my gun and one of my revolvers, fighting gentleman who had formerly known and hung to it so that I had to say yes, though that city well, he could not recollect such a perI was feared they wouldn't know how to take son. "He must be," he said, humorously, care of um. Well, the fust night they camped "one of the latter-day saints; he must have out a man in Yankee clothes came into the come on after I left." camp and wanted to see their shootin' irons. Then says he, 'It's contrary to the law for you to carry these, an' I mus' take um.' And the big fools jes let him carry um off. If I'd been thar, Master, he wouldn't have got um, not if he'd had on all the soger clothes in the world. Of course he wasn't a Yankee; he was some mighty smart reb."

Then he had a couple of complaints to make : one about a horse which had been stolen from him by bushwhackers, with the connivance of a citizen of Abbeville; the other about a little farm which a Pickens man had sought to swindle him out of, on pretense of some old, uncompleted trade in Confederate money. As General Sickles had authorized civil law in South Carolina I advised him to try the courts, but to wait until the stay-order then in force was annulled, so as to be able to collect immediately on getting judgment. After some further talk about the still mysterious robbery of his two thousand pounds of bacon, and certain threats of legal vengeance against "old Jimmy Johnson," whom he held to be somehow responsible for it, he departed, and I saw him no more.

Such is the history of Cato Allums, as nearly as I am able to state it from memory. So far as concerns the homicide I considered the result a triumph of justice, public conscience, and public sense. It had been decided, with the consent of Southern law and Southern public opinion, that a negro has precisely the same right of self-defense as a white man; and thenceforward every ruffian and bushwhacker in the region would understand that in trespassing on the property or threatening the life of a black he did it at his peril. The great point gained was, that the Southerners had of their own accord come to this decision. It was far better than if the release of Cato Allums and the expatriation of his assailants had been attained by military interference.

LARGENT AND JOLY, BUSHWHACKERS.
In consequence of the complaints of Cato
Allums I made inquiries about "old Jimmy
Johnson" (not his true name), and learned the
secret of his evil reputation. From the time

As is usually the case with desperate characters, both these men were under thirty years of age. This fact, that violent crime is generally youthful, seems, by-the-way, to be unknown to novelists; they paint their bloody-minded villains as men of mature development, fearfully grizzled and haggard with a long life of wickedness. Although Largent's motive in his murders and maraudings was apparently nothing but a love of mischief, he was much the most troublesome and formidable of the two. Small, agile, muscular, ready with his weapons, as full of stratagems as a fox, and as audacious as a wolf, he for months defied the pursuit of the garrisons of the region and made himself the terror of Union men and negroes. He sent threatening messages to the former, bullied the latter with cocked revolver, and plundered both. Certain citizens were called to their doors of dark nights; there would be a pistol shot and the fall of a corpse; then a clatter of hoofs through the night; then silence. Some of these atrocities were imputed to Largent and others to Joly, although there was no proof. The two scoundrels lived on the farmers of the region, sometimes remaining several weeks in one lurking-place, sometimes changing their den every night. The inhabitants gave them shelter, partly from admiration of their defiance of the Yankees, and partly from fear of their vindictiveness. One of their favorite resorts was the house of the above mentioned Jimmy Johnson; and hence Cato Allums's charge that the old man connived at the robbery of his two thousand pounds of bacon.

On

Some of Largent's escapes from the soldiery were remarkable. Overtaken by a squad of volunteers, he fell down as if intoxicated, lay perfectly still until his pursuers were close upon him, then shot two or three men in a breath, leaped to his feet, and got away unhurt. another occasion a company surrounded him by night in old Jimmy Johnson's house, and several were already in the veranda, blocking up his exit, when Largent rushed out with a pistol in each hand, firing right and left, and disappeared in the darkness. Twenty cartridges or more were burned in this curious