Chapter 26

During the next month the colonel made several attempts to see Fetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. He finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertained that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, at Carthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonel had been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonel went on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town toward noon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find the proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But the buggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behind the desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in to dinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind the trees across the square.

The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whose walls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discoloured by the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam, which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hall ran through the centre, on either side of which were the county offices, while the court room with a judge's room and jury room, occupied the upper floor.

The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usual signs of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to trees and posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, and several old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes, and fried fish, and cider.

The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly well filled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance. The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in the box, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity with reference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side or on the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel could gather, that particular line fence dispute had been in litigation for twenty years, had cost several lives, and had resulted in a feud that involved a whole township.

The testimony was about concluded when the colonel entered, and the lawyers began their arguments. The feeling between the litigants seemed to have affected their attorneys, and the court more than once found it necessary to call counsel to order. The trial was finished, however, without bloodshed; the case went to the jury, and court was adjourned until two o'clock.

The colonel had never met Fetters, nor had he seen anyone in the court room who seemed likely to be the man. But he had seen his name freshly written on the hotel register, and he would doubtless go there for dinner. There would be ample time to get acquainted and transact his business before court reassembled for the afternoon.

Dinner seemed to be a rather solemn function, and except at a table occupied by the