It never occurred to any person to wonder what would befall Gilma now that “le vieux Gamiche” was dead. After the burial people went their several ways, some to talk over the old man and his , others to forget him before nightfall, and others to wonder what would become of his very nice property, the hundred-acre farm on which he had lived for thirty years, and on which he had just died at the age of seventy.  
If Gilma had been a child, more than one motherly heart would have gone out to him. This one and that one would have bethought them of carrying him home with them; to concern themselves with his present comfort, if not his future welfare. But Gilma was not a child. He was a fellow of nineteen, measuring six feet in his stockings, and 296as strong as any healthy youth need be. For ten years he had lived there on the with Monsieur Gamiche; and he seemed now to have been the only one with tears to shed at the old man’s funeral.
 
Gamiche’s relatives had come down from Caddo in a the day after his death, and had settled themselves in his house. There was Septime, his nephew, a cripple, so horribly that it was to look at him. And there was Septime’s widowed sister, Ma’me Brozé, with her two little girls. They had remained at the house during the burial, and Gilma found them still there upon his return.
 
The young man went at once to his room to seek a moment’s . He had lost much sleep during Monsieur Gamiche’s illness; yet, he was in fact more worn by the mental than the bodily strain of the past week.
 
But when he entered his room, there was something so changed in its aspect that it seemed no longer to belong to him. In place of his own apparel which he had left hanging on the row of , there were a few shabby little garments and two straw hats, 297the property of the Brozé children. The bureau drawers were empty, there was not a of anything belonging to him remaining in the room. His first impression was that Ma’me Brozé had been changing things around and had assigned him to some other room.
 
But Gilma understood the situation better when he discovered every of his personal effects piled up on a bench outside the door, on the back or “false” gallery. His boots and shoes were under the bench, while coats, trousers and underwear were heaped in an indiscriminate mass together.
 
The blood mounted to his swarthy face and made him look for the moment like an Indian. He had never thought of this. He did not know what he had been thinking of; but he felt that he ought to have been prepared for anything; and it was his own fault if he was not. But it hurt. This spot was “home” to him against the rest of the world. Every tree, every was a friend; he knew every patch in the fences; and the little old house, gray and weather-beaten, that had been the shelter of his youth, he loved as only few 298can love inanimate things. A great enmity arose in him against Ma’me Brozé. She was walking about the yard, with her nose in the air, and a shabby black dress trailing behind her. She held the little girls by the hand.
 
Gilma could think of nothing better to do than to mount his horse and ride away—anywhere. The horse was a spirited animal of great value. Monsieur Gamiche had named him “Jupiter” on account of his proud bearing, and Gilma had nicknamed him “Jupe,” which seemed to him more endearing and of his great to the fine creature. With the bitter of youth, he felt that “Jupe” was the only friend remaining to him on earth.
 
He had thrust a few pieces of clothing in his saddlebags and had requested Ma’me Brozé, with assumed , to put his remaining effects in a place of safety until he should be able to send for them.
 
As he rode around by the front of the house, Septime, who sat on the gallery all doubled up in his uncle Gamiche’s big chair, called out:
 
299“Hé, Gilma! w’ere you boun’ fo’?”
 
“I’m goin’ away,” replied Gilma, , his horse.
 
“That’s all right; but I reckon you might jus’ as well leave that hoss behine you.”
 
“The hoss is mine,” returned Gilma, as quickly as he would have returned a blow.
 
“We’ll see ’bout that li’le later, my frien’. I reckon you jus’ well turn ’im loose.”
 
Gilma had no more intention of giving up his horse than he had of parting with his own right hand. But Monsieur Gamiche had taught him and respect for the law. He did not wish to invite disagreeable complications. So, controlling his temper by a effort, Gilma dismounted, unsaddled the horse then and there, and led it back to the stable. But as he started to leave the place on foot, he stopped to say to Septime:
 
“You know, Mr. Septime, that hoss is mine; I can collec’ a hundred aff’davits to prove it. I’ll bring them yere in a few days with a statement f’om a lawyer; an’ I’ll expec’ the hoss an’ saddle to be turned over to me in good condition.”
 
300“That’s all right. We’ll see ’bout that. Won’t you stay fo’ dinna?”
 
“No, I thank you, sah; Ma’me Brozé already ask’ me.” And Gilma strode away, down the beaten that led across the sloping grassplot toward the outer road.
 
A definite destination and a settled purpose ahead of him seemed to have revived his flagging energies of an hour before. It was with no trace of that he stepped out bravely along the wagon-road that skirted the bayou.
 
It was early spring, and the cotton had already a good stand. In some places the negroes were hoeing. Gilma stopped alongside the rail fence and called to an old negress who was her hoe at no great distance.
 
“Hello, Aunt Hal’fax! see yere.”
 
She turned, and immediately quitted her work to go and join him, bringing her hoe with her across her shoulder. She was large-boned and very black. She was dressed in the deshabille of the field.
 
“I wish you’d come up to yo’ cabin with me a minute, Aunt Hally,” he said; “I want to get an aff’davit f’om you.”
 
301She understood, after a fashion, what an was; but she couldn’t see the good of it.
 
“I ain’t got no aff’davis, boy; you g’long an’ don’ pesta me.”
 
“’Twon’t take you any time, Aunt Hal’fax. I jus’ want you to put yo’ mark to a statement I’m goin’ to write to the effec’ that my hoss, Jupe, is my own prop’ty; that you know it, an’ willin’ to swear to it.”
 
“Who say Jupe don’ b’long to you?” she questioned cautiously, leaning on her hoe.
 
He motioned toward the house.
 
“Who? Mista Septime and them?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Well, I reckon!” she exclaimed, sympathetically.
 
“That’s it,” Gilma went on; “an’ nex’ thing they’ll be sayin’ yo’ ole , Policy, don’t b’long to you.”
 
She started violently.
 
“Who say so?”
 
“Nobody. But I say, nex’ thing, that’ w’at they’ll be sayin’.”
 
302She began to move along the inside of the fence, and he turned to keep pace with her, walking on the edge of the road.
 
“I’ll jus’ write the aff’davit, Aunt Hally, an’ all you got to do”—
 
“You know des well as me dat mule mine. I done paid ole Mista Gamiche fo’ ’im in good cotton; dat year you falled outen de puckhorn tree; an’ he write it down hisse’f in his ’count book.”
 
Gilma did not linger a moment after obtaining the desired statement from Aunt Halifax. With the first of those “hundred ” that he hoped to secure, safe in his pocket, he struck out across the country, seeking the shortest way to town.
 
Aunt Halifax stayed in the cabin door.
 
“’Relius,” she shouted to a little black boy out in the road, “does you see Pol’cy anywhar? G’long, see ef he ’roun’ de ben’. Wouldn’ s’prise me ef he broke de fence an’ got in yo’ pa’s corn ag’in.” And, shading her eyes to scan the surrounding country, she muttered, uneasily: “Whar dat mule?”
 
The following morning Gilma entered town and proceeded at once to Lawyer Paxton’s 303office. He had had no difficulty in obtaining the of blacks and whites regarding his ownership of the horse; but he wanted to make his claim as secure as possible by consulting the lawyer and returning to the plantation armed with unassailable evidence.
 
The lawyer’s office was a plain little room opening upon ............