"Are you a colored boy?" Virgie asked.
"No," answered the boy, proudly. "I'm Indian-river Indian; reckon I'm a little nigger."
"Take this poor man in and I will pay you. Where are you going?"
"To Dagsborough landing, for salt."
"Leave me at Dagsborough, at the old Clayton house," spoke up the blind man; "it's empty. I can die thar or git a doctor."
Before the people were up they entered a little hamlet, on that stage road from which they had made the night's detour, and saw a few small houses and a little shingle-boarded church near by among the woods, and one large house of a deserted appearance was at the town's extremity. The man said, "This is John M. Clayton's birthplace: my wife used to work yer."
"Virgie!" exclaimed a familiar voice.
The girl turned, her ears still ringing with the echoes of the swamp, and saw a face she knew, and ran to the breast beneath it, crying,
"Samson Hat! Oh, friend, love me like my mother. I am very ill."
"Pore, darlin' child," Samson said; "no love will I ever bodder you wid agin but a father's. Why air you so fur from home?"