Still Eliab looked incredulous.

"You see dat _dis_charge?" said Nimbus, pulling the document
from his pocket. "You jes look at what de paymaster writ on dat,
ef yer don't b'lieve Nimbus hez hed any luck. 'Sides dat, I'se got
de dockyments h'yer ter show jes whar an' how I got dat mule."

The care which had been exercised by his officer in providing
Nimbus with the written evidence of his ownership of the mule was
by no means needless. According to the common law, the possession
of personal property is _prima facie_ evidence of its ownership;
but in those early days, before the nation undertook to spread
the aegis of equality over him, such was not the rule in the case
of the freedman. Those first legislatures, elected only by the
high-minded land-owners of the South, who knew the African, his
needs and wants, as no one else could know them, and who have always
proclaimed themselves his truest friends, enacted with especial
care that he should not "hold nor own nor have any rights of property
in any horse, mule, hog, cow, steer, or other stock," unless the
same was attested by a bill of sale or other instrument of writing
executed by the former owner. It was well for Nimbus that he was
armed with his "dockyments."

Eliab Hill took the papers handed him by Nimbus, and read, slowly
and with evident difficulty; but as he mastered line after line
the look of incredulity vanished, and a glow of solemn joy spread
over his face. It was the first positive testimony of actual
freedom--the first fruits of self-seeking, self-helping manhood
on the part of his race which had come into the secluded country
region and gladdened the heart of the stricken prophet and adviser.