At the sound a big, gaunt figure, asleep on the floor, sprang up.
In the dim light Randolph looked about for a weapon—a piece of the broken door would do. But my uncle was undisturbed.
"Dabney," he said, "I came to arrange about the money. My agent, Mr. Gray, in Memphis, will hand it to you. There will be nothing to sign."
Randolph said he cried out, because he was astonished:
"Dabney Madison, by the living God! I thought you were dead!"
My uncle turned about.
"How could you think that, Randolph?" he said. "You yourself pointed out how the dog was killed by somebody who knew him; and you must have seen that there was no blood on the floor where the dog lay—and consequently that the dog was killed in the bed to furnish blood for the pretended murder."
"But the money, Abner!" cried Randolph. "Why do you pay Dabney Madison this money?"
"Because it is his share of his father's estate," replied my uncle.
"So you were after that!" cried Randolph; "the half of your father's estate. Damme, man, you took a lot of hell-turns on the road to that! Why didn't you sue in the courts? Your right was legal."
"Because a suit at law would have brought out his past," replied my uncle.
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