“Jimmy knowed he could depend on the family pride, an' he sent fer all the kin fer miles around. It raised a awful rumpus, fer not one o' our stock an' generation had ever been jailed, an' the last one of us didn't want it to happen. I reckon we was afeerd ef it once broke out amongst us it mought become a epidemic. They galloped in on the'r hosses an' mules, an' huddled around Mason. They closed his doors, back an' front, an' patted 'im on the back, an' talked about the'r trade an' influence, an' begged 'im not to prefer charges; but old Joe stood as solid as a rock. He said a thief was a thief, ef you spelt it back'ards or for'ards, or ef he was akin to a king or a corn-fiel' nigger. He said it was, generally, the bigger the station the bigger the thief. Old Joe jest set at his stove an' chawed tobacco an' spit. Now an' then he'd stick his hands down in his pockets an' rip out a oath. Then Jimmy's young wife come with her little teensy baby, an' set down by Jimmy, skeerd mighty nigh out of 'er life. Looked like the baby was skeerd too, fer it never cried ur moved. Then the sheriff driv' up in his buggy an' come in clinkin' a pair o' handcuffs. He seed what they was all up to an' stood back to see who would win, Jimmy's kin or old Joe. All at once I tuck notice o' something that made me madder'n a wet hen. They all knowed I had money laid up, an' they begun to ax old Mason ef I'd put up the five hundred dollars would he call it off. I was actu'ly so mad I couldn't speak. Old Joe said he reckoned, seein' that they was all so turribly set back, that he'd do it ef I was willin'. The Old Nick got in me then as big as a side of a house, an' I give the layout about the toughest talk they ever had. It didn't faze 'em much, fer all they wanted was to git Jimmy free, an' so they tuck another tack. Ef they'd git up half amongst 'em all, would I throw in t'other half? That, ef anything, made me madder. I axed 'em what they tuck me fer--did I look like a durn fool? An' did they think beca'se they was sech fools I was one? “Old Tommy Todd, Jimmy's own uncle, was thar, but he never had a word to say. He jest set an' smoked his pipe an' looked about, but he wouldn't open his mouth when they'd ax him a question. He was knowed to be sech a skinflint that nobody seemed to count on his help at all, an' he looked like he was duly thankful fer his reputation to hide behind in sech a pressure.