“Damn fool from up North,” he explained, angrily. “Wanted to hire a rig an' hosses to go over the mountain, whar he's got some lumber interests. He talked to me like--I wish you'd a-heard 'im. I couldn't hardly pin 'im down to business, he was so full o' the hangin'. He happened to see 'em cut down the body an' haul it away. Of course, he had no idea that I--he seemed to lay it to a gang o' cutthroats from over whar he was to go, an' wondered if it would be safe for a Northern man to drive out unarmed an' without a bodyguard.” “Why didn't you slap his jaw?” Hoag growled, inconsistently. “Yes, an' had 'im ax what it was to me,” Trawley snarled. “I did, in a roundabout way, try to show up our side, an' what we have to contend with; but he just kept groanin', 'My Lord, my Lord,' an' sayin' that old woman an' her children was the pitifulest sight he ever saw! He said”--Trawley shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace as he tugged at his mustache--“he said all of us _civilized_ citizens--them was his words--ought to band together an' 'force law an' order--that it was killin' our interests. He had been countin' on locatin' here, he said, but was afeard, when the thing got in the papers, his company would back out an' not develop their property. He seemed awfully put out. I tried to tell 'im that if he knowed niggers as we do he'd see it our way; but the truth is, I was so bothered over that dang tramp's arrest that--” “I've been studyin' over that.” Hoag dismissed the stranger from his mind with a fierce frown. “There is only one thing to do. Set down here--set down!” Sid complied. “If you can think of any way out o' the mess you can beat me,” he said, dejectedly. “Thar is just one thing for us to do.” Hoag was to some extent regaining his self-possession, his old autocratic mien had returned. “You fellows are all goin' to git rattled an' somebody's got to keep a clear head an' plan how to act. The klan will naturally look to me; it is really on my shoulders; we'll sink or fall by my judgment. Some of us have got to git together to-night an' march over thar to the Canton jail an' take that tramp out.” “An' lynch 'im? Good Lord, Cap--” “No, fool, not lynch 'im--that wouldn't do--that never would do in the world; we must send 'im about his business--hustle 'im out o' the country an'--an' circulate the report that he was arrested by mistake, which--which I've no doubt he was. Pete Watson sold 'im the watch. That's plain enough.” “Oh, ah, I see--by gum, I see; but what about the sheriff over thar? Fellers o' that sort are sometimes proud o' makin' an arrest in a case like that.” “That's the only hill to climb an' we may fail; but we've got to try it. I know 'im purty well. He expects to be re-elected, an' half of our boys live in his county an' vote thar. We must show 'im the damage the thing would work among the niggers, an' sort o' make a--a political issue of it; show 'im that he'll git beat, an' beat bad, if he goes ag'in' so many.”