“So you didn’t git no letter fer me, Alf,” said Sims, significantly. “Seems like no mail don’t come this way here lately hardly at all. I hope all the rest ’ll have their ride fer nothin’ too.” Alf Carden understood, having given Sims a letter half an hour before, and he smiled. “No,” he said, “thar hain’t nothin’ fer any of you except Jim Trundle; has he come along yet?” Jim stood up quickly, and laid his besmeared cracker on the barrel. “Me?” he ejaculated, and a white puff shot from his crunching jaws; “I--I reckon yo ‘re mistaken.” “I reckon I kin read,” replied Carden, still acting his part nonchalantly, and glancing askance at Sims to see how that individual was taking it. “It is jest Jim Trundle in plain ABC letters. It is either from somebody that cayn’t write shore ’nough writin’ ur is tryin’ to disguise his handwrite.” Carden threw the letter on the counter. It lay there fully a minute, while Jim Trundle wiped his hands on his trousers, gulped down a mouthful of cracker, and stared helplessly round at the upturned faces. Then he reached for the letter, and with trembling fingers tore it open and read as follows: _“Jim Trundle. This is to give you due notice. We the reglar organized band of Regulators of this settlement hav set on yore case an decided what we are goin to do about it. Time and agin good citizens have advised you to change yore way of livin’, but you jest went along as before, in the same old rut._ _“You are no earthly account, an no amount of talkin seems to do you any good. Yore childern are in tatters an without food, an you jest wont do nothin fer them. This might hav gone on longer without our action, but last Wednesday you let yore sick wife go to the field in the hot brilin sun, an she was seed by a responsible citizen in a faintin condition, while you was on the creek banks a fishin in the shade._ _“To night exactly at eight oclock we are comin after you in full force to give you a sound lickin. Yore wife an childern would be better off without you, and we advise you to leave the country before that time. If we find you at home at eight oclock you may count on a sore back._ “_Yours truly, the secretary.”_ The spectators observed that Jim Trundle had read every word of the communication. His eyes, in their sunken sockets, darted strange, hunted glances from face to face, as if seeking sympathy; then, as if realizing the futility of the hope, he looked down at the floor. He leaned back against the counter so heavily that Carden’s thread-case rattled its contents and the beam of the scales wildly swung back and forth. The group furtively feasted themselves on his visible agony, but they got nothing more, for Jim Trundle did not intend to talk. Talking was not in his line. He knew that at eight o’clock that night he was going to be punished in a way that would be remembered against the third and fourth generation of his descendants--that is, if he did not desert his family and leave the country.