“Those promises he kept like the honorable gentleman he is,” Wiggin snorted, tossing back his hair in white rage and rolling up his sleeves again. “You know how he kept his word to the public. He organized a secret band of his dirty associates in town, dressed 'em up like White Caps, and they went to the jail and took the nigger out. Then they hid him in a cellar of a store where you all buy supplies, out of the goodness of your patriotic souls, and later sent him in a new suit of clothes to Chattanooga, where he is now engaged in the same sort of life that he was here, an idle, good-for-nothing, lazy tramp, who says he's as good as any white man that ever wore shoe-leather and no doubt thinks he will some day marry a white woman.” The rising storm burst, and Wiggin stood above it calmly viewing it in all its subdued and open fury. Shouts of rage rent the air. Men with blanched faces, men with gleaming eyes, rose from their seats, as if a call to their manhood for instantaneous action had been sounded, and walked about muttering threats, grinding their teeth, and clinching their brawny hands. “Ah, ha!” Wiggin bellowed; “I see you catch my idea. But I'm not through. Just wait!” He paused to drink again, and Pole Baker, with a grave look in his honest eye approached the sculpturesque shape of Mrs. Parsons and nudged her. “Did you ever in yore life?” he said; but staring him in the eyes steadily, the woman seemed not to hear what he was saying. Her lower lip was twitching and there was an expression of settled determination in her eyes. Baker, wondering, moved back to his place, for Wiggin had levelled his guns again. “And the man that was at the head of it, what is he doing right now? Why he's leaning back in his rocking-chair in his law-office drawing a fat pension from his rich old daddy, taking in big fees for such legal work as that, and fairly splitting his sides laughing at you folks, who he calls a lot of sap-headed hillbillies, fit only for hopping clods and feeding hogs on swill and pussley weeds. Oh, that was a picnic--that trick he and those town rowdies put up on you! It was a gentle rebuke to you, and when he gets to the legislature he says he--” “Legislature be damned!” Dan Willis roared, and the crowd took up his cry. “Oh yes, _you'll_ vote him in,” Wiggin went on, with a vast air of mock depression and reproach; “you think you won't now, but when he gets up and tells his side of it with a forced tear or two, your women folks will say, 'Poor boy!' and tell you what to do at the polls.” Comprehensive applause greeted the speaker as he sat down. Hats were thrown in the air and Dan Willis organized and gave three resounding cheers. CHAPTER XXXVII. [Illustration: 9328]