"I seed him a-runnin'. Bress my soul! de dog like to got him!"
"But who was he, Uncle Braddock?" said Mr. Loudon, who had just reached the store from his house, where Kate, who had run home, had told the story. "Do you know him?"
"Know him? Reckon I does?" said Uncle Braddock, "an' de dog ud a knowed him too, ef he'd a cotched him! Dat's so, Mah'sr John."
"Well, tell us his name, if you know him," said Mr. Darby.
"Ob course, I knows him," said Uncle Braddock. "I'se done knowed him fur twenty or fifty years. He's George Mason."
The announcement of this name caused quite a sensation in the party.
"I thought he was down in Mississippi," said one man.
"So he was; I reckons," said Uncle Braddock, "but he's done come back now. I'se seed him afore to-day, and Aunt Matilda's seed him, too. Yah, ha! Dat dere dog come mighty nigh cotchin' him!"
George Mason had been quite a noted character in that neighborhood five or six years before. He belonged to a good family, but was of a lawless disposition and was generally disliked by the decent people of the county. Just before he left for the extreme Southern States, it was discovered that he had been concerned in a series of horse-thefts, for which he would have been arrested had he not taken his departure from the State.
Few people, excepting Mr. Loudon and one or two others, knew the extent of his misdemeanors; and out of regard to his family, these had not been made public. But he had the reputation of being a wild, disorderly man, and now that it was known that he had contemplated boxing Kate Loudon's ears and whipping Harry, the indignation was very great.