“We met up with these gentlemen down at the river,” began Yates, “and from what they done told us, we thought we’d all better ride in along together, and have a little talk with you.  Looks like there might be trouble in these parts before long.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“It’s this-a-way,” broke in the Honorable William Jones.  “The jedge an’ I laid off at Cairo when you-all went on through.  Next day, along comes a steamer from up-river, an’ she’s full of northern men, headed west; a damned sight more like a fightin’ army than so many settlers.  They’re goin’ out into the purairie country beyant, an’ I think it’s just on the early-bird principle, to hold it ag’inst settlers from this state.  They’re a lot of those damned black abolitionists, that’s what they are!  What’s more, that Lily gal of the jedge’s here, she’s got away agin—­she turned up missin’ at Cairo, too—­an’ she taken up with this bunch of Yankees, an’ is mighty apt to git clar off.”

Judge Clayton nodded gravely.  “The whole North is stirred up and bound to make trouble.  These men seem to have taken the girl in without hesitation.  They don’t intend to stand by any compromise, at least.  The question is, what are we going to do about it?  We can’t stand here and see our property taken away by armed invaders, in this way.  And yet—­”

“It looks,” he added slowly, a moment later, “just as Thomas Jefferson said long ago, as though this country had the wolf by the ear, and could neither hold it nor let it go.  For myself—­and setting aside this personal matter, which is at worst only the loss of a worthless girl—­I admit I fear that this slavery wolf is going to mean trouble—­big trouble—­both for the South and the North, before long.”

“Douglas, over there in Illinois, hasn’t brought up anything in Congress yet that’s stuck,” broke in the ever-ready Jones.  “Old Caroliny and Mississip’—­them’s the ones!  Their conventions show where we’re goin’ to stand at.  We’ll let the wolf go, and take holt in a brand new place, that’s exactly what we’ll do!”

Dunwody remained silent for a time.  Doctor Jamieson took snuff, and looked quietly from one to the other.  “You can count me in, gentlemen,” said he.

Silence fell as he went on.  “If they mean fight, let them have fight.  If we let in one army of abolitionists out here, to run off our property, another will follow.  As soon as the railroad gets as far west as the Missouri River, they’ll come out in swarms; and they will take that new country away from us.  That’s what they want.

“The South has been swindled all along the line,” he exclaimed, rising and smiting a fist into a palm.  “We got Texas, yes, but it had to be by war.  We’ve been juggled out of California, which ought to have been a southern state.  We don’t want these deserts of Utah and New Mexico, for they won’t raise cotton.  When we try to get into Cuba, the North and all the rest of the world protests.  We are cut off from growth to the south by Mexico.  On the west we have these Indians located.  The whole upper West is air-tight abolitionist by national law.  Now, where shall we go?  These abolitionists are even wedging in west of us.  This damned compromise line ought to be cut off the map.  We ought to have a chance to grow!”