"But men of my sort will be misjudged, Tolliver," pursued the Major; "violent men will get in the saddle, and outrages will be committed, and injustice will be done. Public opinion to the north of us will say that the old fire-eaters, who won't permit even a respectable white man to insult them with impunity--the old slave-drivers--are trying to destroy the coloured race. But you will live, my son, to see some of these same radicals admit that all the injustice and all the wrong is due to the radical policy." This prophecy came true. Time has abundantly vindicated the Major and those who acted with him. "Yes, yes," Major Perdue went on musingly, "injustice will be done. The fact is, it has already begun in some quarters. Be switched if it doesn't look like you can't do right without doing wrong somewhere on the road." Gabriel turned this paradox over in his mind, as they walked along; but it was not until he was a man grown that it straightened itself out in his mind something after this fashion: When a wrong is done the innocent suffer along with the guilty; and the innocent also suffer in its undoing. Shady Dale woke up the next morning to find the walls and the fences in all public places plastered with placards, or handbills, printed in red ink. The most prominent feature of the typography, however, was not its colour, but the image of a grinning skull and cross-bones. The handbill was in the nature of a proclamation. It was dated "Den No. Ten, Second Moon. Year 21,000 of the Dynasty." It read as follows: "To all Lovers of Peace and Good Order--Greeting: Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of the Grand Cyclops that evil-minded white men, and deluded freedmen, are engaged in stirring up strife; and whereas it is known that corruption is conspiring with ignorance-- "Therefore, this is to warn all and singular the persons who have made or are now making incendiary propositions and threats, and all who are banded together in secret political associations to forthwith cease their activity. And let this warning be regarded as an order, the violation of which will be followed by vengeance swift and sure. The White Riders are abroad. "Thrice endorsed by the Venerable, the Grand Cyclops, in behalf of the all-powerful Klan. (. (. (. K. K. K. .) .) .)" Now, if this document had been in writing, it might have passed for a joke, but it was printed, and this fact, together with its grave and formal style, gave it the dignity and importance of a genuine proclamation from a real but an unseen and unknown authority. It had the advantage of mystery, and there are few minds on which the mysterious fails to have a real influence. In addition to this, the spectacular performance at the Rev. Jeremiah's church the night before gave substance to the proclamation. That event was well calculated to awe the superstitious and frighten the timid.