“I know how you feel about all this negro business. And I feel the same way. We all know that we must be the negros' masters. Grimes there found that out when he came South, and the idea pleased him so he hasn't been able to talk about anything else since. Grimes has turned into what the Northern newspapers think a typical Southerner is. “Boys, this thing of lynching gets to be a habit. There's been a negro lynched to-day. He's the third in this county in five years. They all needed killing. If the thing stopped there I wouldn't care so much. But the habit of illegal killing grows when it gets started. “It's grown on you. You're fixing to lynch your first white man now. If you do, you'll lynch another easier. You'll lynch one for murder and the next for stealing hogs and the next because he's unpopular and the next because he happens to dun you for a debt. And in five years life will be as cheap in Watson County as it is in a New York slum where they feed immigrants to the factories. You'll all be toting guns and grudges and trying to lynch each other. “The place to stop the thing is where it starts. You can't have it both ways--you've got to stand pat on the law, or else see the law spit on right and left, in the end, and _nobody_ safe. It's either law or--” “But,” says Grimes, “there's a higher law than that on the statute books. There's--” “There's a lot of flub-dub,” says the colonel, “about higher laws and unwritten laws. But we've got high enough law written if we live up to it. There's--” “Colonel Tom Buckner,” says Buck Hightower, “what kind of law was it when you shot Ed Howard fifteen years ago? What--” “You're out of order,” says the chairman, “Colonel Buckner has the floor. And I'll remind you, Buck Hightower, that, on the occasion you drag in, Colonel Buckner didn't do any talking about higher laws or unwritten laws. He sent word to the sheriff to come and get him if he dared.” “Boys,” says the colonel, “I'm preaching you higher doctrine than I've lived by, and I've made no claim to be better or more moral than any of you. I'm not. I'm in the same boat with all of you, and I tell you it's up to _all_ of us to stop lynchings in this county--to set our faces against it. I tell you--” “Is that all you've got to say to us, colonel?” The question come out of a group that had drawed nearer together whilst the colonel was talking. They was tired of listening to talk and arguments, and showed it. The colonel stopped speaking short when they flung that question at him. His face changed. He turned serious all over. And he let loose jest one word: “_No_!” Not very loud, but with a ring in it that sounded like danger. And he got 'em waiting agin, and hanging on his words. “No!” he repeats, louder, “not all. I have this to say to you--” And he paused agin, pointing one long white finger at the crowd-- “_If you lynch this man you must kill me first!_”