“Good, good!” several voices exclaimed. The entire assemblage was on its feet. Hoag rose as if to demand order, but the purpose was drowned in the flood of dismay within him. He saw Welborne and his friends moving away. They were followed by others more or less slowly, who threw awkward backward glances at him. Presently only Purvynes and he remained. The sentinel leaned on the barrel of his gun and chewed his tobacco slowly. “I seed this thing a-comin' a long time back.” He spat deliberately, aiming at a stone at his feet. “They've talked too much behind your back to be true to your face. I can say it now, I reckon, for I reckon you want to understand the thing. Do you, or do you not?” “Well, I don't know what to make of it,” Hoag said, with the lips of a corpse, the eyes of a dying man. “I simply don't!” “Well, it's this a way,” Purvynes explained, with as much tact as he could command. “Welborne didn't tell it all. What really has rankled for a long time was that--_they_ say, you understand--that you just kept this thing a-goin' for a sort o' hobby to ride on when you ain't off in Atlanta havin' a good time. They claim that you just love to set back an' give orders, an' preside like a judge an' be bowed an' scraped to. They say that, here of late, you hain't seemed to be alive to home interests or present issues. They claim the niggers are gittin' unbearable all around, an' that you are afraid they will rise an' burn some o' your property. They say you don't care how much the niggers insult white folks, an' that you'd rather see a decent farmer's wife scared by a black imp than lose one o' your warehouses or mills. They are goin' to reorganize to-morrow night. An' listen to me, Jim--” Hoag heard the man address him for the first time by his Christian name--“they are goin' to raise hell. An' that's whar you an' me come in.” “Whar _we_ come in? You don't think they would dare to--to--” Hoag began tremulously, and ended in rising dismay. “Oh, I don't mean they would actually mob you or me or any o' the old klan, but whatever they do will be laid at our door because we've been in the thing so long. The truth is, Jim, you trained them fellers to be what they are; they are jest sparks off of your flint. I reckon if Nape Welborne knowed how I looked at it he'd say _I_ had cold feet, for I've been doin' a sight o' thinkin' lately. I've heard Paul Rundel talk on this line.” “You say you have! He's a fool.” “I don't know 'bout that; if he ain't got it down about right, nobody has. I heard him talkin' to a crowd one day at the flour-mill. He ain't afraid o' man nor beast. Everybody knows that. Nape Welborne chipped in once, but Paul settled 'im, an' Nape was ashamed to argue any longer. Paul says we are in an awful fix. He prophesied then that we'd turn ag'in' our own race an' we are a-doin' it. You yourself have made enemies among the very men that used to follow you, an' the Lord only knows whar it will end.”