Mrs. Balis next conducted her guest to her boudoir; a servant brought in refreshments, consisting of a variety of fruits, cakes, and confections, with wine sangaree and lemonade.  After partaking of these, the ladies had a long talk while awaiting the return of their husbands.  The gentlemen were gone much longer than had been anticipated, and I am not sure the wives did not grow a little uneasy.  At all events they left the boudoir for the front veranda, which gave them a view of the avenue and some hundred yards of the road beyond in the direction from which the travelers must come.  And when at length the two were descried approaching, in a more leisurely manner than they went, there was a simultaneous and relieved exclamation, “Oh, there they are at last.”

The ladies stood up and waved their handkerchiefs.  There was no response; the gentlemen’s faces were towards each other and they seemed to be engaged in earnest converse.

“Unsuccessful,” said Mrs. Balis.

“How do you know?” asked Elsie.

“There’s an air of dejection about them.”

“I don’t see it,” returned Elsie, smiling.  “They seem to me only too busy talking to notice our little attention.”

But Mrs. Balis was correct in her conjecture.  The boat had passed Madison some time before the gentlemen arrived there, had paused but a few minutes and landed no such passenger.  Learning this they then telegraphed the authorities of the next town; waited some hours, and received a return telegram to the effect that the boat had been boarded, no person answering the description found; but the captain gave the information that such a man had been taken on board at Dr. Balis’ plantation, and set ashore at the edge of a forest half-way between that place and Madison.

On receiving this intelligence Mr. Travilla and the doctor started for home, bringing with them a posse of mounted men headed by some of the police of Madison.

Dr. Balis had taken with him to Madison the blood-stained coat of Jackson.  From this the hounds took the scent, and on arriving at the wood mentioned by the skipper, soon found the trail and set off in hot pursuit, the horsemen following close at their heels.

Our gentlemen did not join in the chase, but having seen it well begun, continued on their homeward way.

“And you did consent to the use of hounds?” Elsie said inquiringly, and with a slightly reproachful look at her husband.

“My dear,” he answered gently, “having been put into the hands of the police it has now become a commonwealth case, and I have no authority to dictate their mode of procedure.”

“Forgive me, dearest, if I seemed to reproach you,” she whispered, the sweet eyes seeking his with a loving, repentant look, as for a moment they were left alone together.

He drew her to him with a fond caress.  “My darling, I have nothing to forgive.”

In the cabin at whose door Jackson had made his call and remounted his steed, a woman—­the same with whom his business had been transacted—­was stooping over an open fire, frying fat pork and baking hoe-cake.  Bill sat on his bench smoking as before, while several tow-headed children romped and quarreled, chasing each other round and round the room with shouts of “You quit that ere!” “Mammy, I say, make her stop.”