The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-03

and Rehabilitation After Ills Fine De,
 tective Work in the Case of the stack,
 Burning Nigger.
 There was yet another tale which the
 genial Virginia Colonel had to tell his friends upon the subject of his friend
 the lop-eared hound so he told it witt
 its usual accompaniment-- a "wee
 cerned a hound whose name was in the
 vernacular of tide-water Virginia was
 Mush. And this is how the Colonel told
 it:
 "Speakin' of dogs" he said, "-but
 I'm always speakin' of dogs, eh?-but
 as you don't seem to mind it why should
 l stop? Speakin of dogs reminded me
 of another one that we had on our place.
 He wasn't q partrician, as were Moth
 and Rust. No pedigree was his nor even
 name as we ever knew until the Pater,
 by a chance remark, gave him one He
 was just nobody's dog, You've seen 'em? An at the same time all kinds of
 dog, no doubt havin' most promiscuous
 antecedents, but he was mostly hound, an after all pretty good hound at that, We never knew where he came from.
 He just trotted up the lane one day,
 bounded up the front steps, an selectin' cool spot in the shade of a honey Suckle vine, he curled himself up an went to sleep. Of course he ate with the other dogs, who seemed glad to see him. except Rust an Mith, who treated him with fine disdain until the days of their death. An in day he was as much to home as the Pater But he was the most dejected Iookin' brute. He always wore look of settled melan- choly on his face even when he wagged his tail, which is a dogs way of smilin'. He had lost big piece out of one ear and had also parted with a piece of his tail by force, I suspect. He was yellow an tan in splotches, just as if he had had pot of paint spilled over him, an this led the Pater to remark one day: That dogs the color of mush an mo- lasseS.'
 "Old Zeke heard the remark an for the want of better name he called that dog Mueh. An the name stuck to him. Mush was what the Pater would have called a willin' dog-the
  count nigger 'willin, " but with his willin' ness Mush got into trouble, an by the way that fools have of gettin' on in this world he went an got himself out again.
 "As have said, Mush wasn't any particular kind of dog and so he went around with no sort of purpose in him, doin' anything that came into hie head. q apparently The bird dogs, that were seldom tied up, soon took up with him an one day the Pater caught 'em at it an there was trouble. Mush got a sound liclin', the bird dogs were tied up an the Pater gave orders for the unlucky Mush to be licked on sight z For a few days we saw nothin' of our Rejected friend Mush, but Jim an I Hrophesied that he would come back an sure enough he did. We spied him one day sneakin' up to the kennel yard. | He saw us first, however, an ran off. | We watched him cross the meadows an | disappear in the woods. We also made | up our minds not to tell on Mush an likewise to persuade the Pater on his be- half, but never got the opportunity to ! do so, for luck overlook the fugitive at !, just the right moment and reinstated | him in the household for all time.
 For a month previous to Mushs ap- pearance there had been strange hap penin's in the neighborhood. Smoke houses were bein' broken open, fodder stalks were bein set on fire an nobody had any idea who was doin' it until Mush happened to stumble across the mscreant. We never knew exactly how it happened, but we attributed it to the dislike that Mush took to some people, particularly the kind that shambled when they walked We had noticed it once when the Pater hired new nig- ger None of us liked his looks. It was before Mush fell into disrepute, an he was asleep on the porch when the mig ger came up to get his orders. Mush bristled up as soon as the nigger came in smellin' distance and jumped up with a groWl The Pater spoke to him, but he just sat down an eyed that nigger with his teeth shoWin an grumblin' down in his throat. Whenever that mig ger turned up Mush acted the same way So the Pater, who always relied on the sense ia dog, discharged the nigger, sayin' that man who couldn't make friends with a hound wasn't fit to have around.
 'It was about a week after Mueh had been banished when one night just at supper time hound began to bay down in the pasture. Had it been new moon or full moon we Woould have maid no attention to the sound, but as the nights were dark it struck us all as being pe- culiar and the Pater remarked: Boys, that sounds like that beggar dog of { yoursl" "Jim an had thought the same, ar to make sure that our dogs were all lied up we went to the kennels an } found that that was the case Presently s old Zeke came up to the house from the quarters in a state of considerable { excitement at the hounds baying, which ' continued persistently. I couldn't help { at the mournful sound com- ng so uncannily from the almost total s darkness so. far away. Zelle was plainly i badly scared an was for organizing 2 party, phophesying that no I good would come from the sign, as he } jailed it. The Pater tried to laugh down lis fear and suggested that he go down c n the field and see what was the trou- ,le was, but Zehe lowed that with the Q still green in September an