“Your wife's dead, Cap--Jim, I mean--an' you kin talk, but my folks will git away from these mountains if they have to foot it on ragged uppers. They simply won't stay. Jim, my trouble is a sight deeper than I've admitted. I--I feel like a dead man that nobody cares enough about to bury. Say, I'm goin' to tell you, an' then I know you will pity me if it is in you to pity _any_ man. Jim, I always thought my wife loved me as much as the average woman loves the father of her children; but last night--last night, away late, when she couldn't sleep, she come over to my bed an' set down on the rail an' talked straighter than she ever has in her life. Jim, she said--she said she thought I ought to be willin' to go away for good an' all, an' leave 'er an' the children, since I was responsible for this calamity. She said she was sure her an' the children would be let alone if I'd go clean off an' never show up ag'in, an' that she'd rather work 'er fingers to the bone than be bothered like she is. Lord, Lord, Jim, I felt so awful that I actually cried an' begged for mercy like a whipped child. I'd always thought she was a soft-hearted, lovin' woman, but she was as hard as flint. She said she'd rather never lay eyes on me ag'in than have this thing hangin' over her an' the children. She finally agreed, if I'd git the money from you an' leave at once, that maybe her an' the rest would follow. So that's why I come to see you. Jim, a rich man like you can rake up a small amount like that to accommodate an old--” “And leave _me_ with the bag to hold.” Hoag's misery was eager for any sort of company. “I won't lend you a cent--not a cent!” he snorted. “We've got to--to fight this thing out. No bunch o' lazy niggers can scare the life out o' me.” “But we are tied hand an' foot, Jim,” Purvynes faltered. “The black brain that writ that warnin' is equal to a white man's when it comes to that sort o' warfare. I know the threat word for word by heart. I can shut my eyes an' see the skull an' bones. Even if we went to law for protection we'd have to show that sheet, an' you wouldn't want to do that as it stands, an' I don't believe all the Governor's guards in the State could help us out, for in these mountains the niggers kin stay under cover an' pick us off one by one as we walk about, like sharpshooters lyin' in the weeds an' behind trees an' rocks. Then thar is a danger that maybe you hain't thought of.” “What's that?” Hoag asked, with a dumb stare into the other's waxlike countenance. “Why, if they take a notion they kin poison all the drinkin'-water anywhars about. Niggers don't look far ahead. They wouldn't even think o' the widespread results to them as well as us.” A desperate look of conviction crept across Hoag's eyes. At this juncture he heard the front door of his house open, and, turning, he saw Jack come out on the veranda and eagerly start down the steps toward him. “Stay thar!” Hoag waved his hand dejectedly. “I'm comin' up right away.”