One day, Judge Mortimer, hurrying into the Court House, said: "Yankee Landon is on the hustings making a damnable speech to the negroes!" Landon's voice could be heard and the growls of his audience. The whites caught these words ringing clear and distinct: "We will depopulate this whole country of whites. We have got to do it with fire and sword!" Some one else, much excited, came in, saying, "A movement's on foot to lynch Landon." The old Judge hastened up the street. He met some stern-faced men and stopped them. "We know what Landon is saying," they told him, "and we intend to swing him." He tried to turn them from their purpose, but they declared: "There is no sense in waiting until that scoundrel has incited the negroes to massacre us." Another cool-headed jurist sought to stay them. "Do you realise what you are going to do?" he asked. "We are going to hang Yankee Landon." "That will not do!" "We've got to do it. The safety of our homes demands it." The combined efforts of conservative men stayed summary action. Landon got wind of what was brewing, and for a time was more prudent of tongue; then, concluding that the people were afraid to molest him, broke forth anew. In the Union League season, there was a tremendous negro crowd on the streets; whites had hardly room to walk; they got very sick of it all. Roxmere's college men decided to take a hand and disposed themselves for action. "Don't give way one inch to these old slavocrats!" Landon was shouting from a goods-box, when they sent Cobb Preston out. Cobb, in a dressing-gown trailing four feet, walked into the crowd. He placed a chip on his hat. "Will some one step on my dressing-gown or knock this chip off?" he asked loudly and suavely. Everybody gave him room to trail around in. Nobody stepped near the tail of that dressing-gown! No hand approached within yards of that chip! Any sudden turn he made was a signal for fresh scatterings which left wide swath for his processional. Did he flirt around quickly, calling on somebody to step on his gown or knock off his chip, darkeys fell over each other getting out of his way. Landon understood. He knew if the college boys succeeded in starting a row he would be killed. After that, whites could use sidewalks without being shoved off. Landon was adept in pocketing insults. Men cast fearful epithets in his teeth. "I have heard Vance McGregor call him a dog, a thief--and he would take it," says a lawyer who practised in the same courts with him.