"Here, Maria," called out Si, as he resumed his place at the table with Shorty, while the girls grouped together and whispered anxiously, "bring us in some more o' them slapjacks. We may have to be up all night, and want somethin' that'll stay by us." "Yes," echoed Shorty, speaking for the first time since he had come into the house; "I feel as if I'd like to begin all over agin." "I wish you could begin all over agin," said Maria in a tone very different from her former one. "I'd like to cook another supper for you. I wish I could do something to help. Can't I go with you and do something--load guns, or something? I've read about women doin' somethin' o' that kind in the Injun fightin'." "If you could git 'em within range o' your tongue, Maria," said Si merrily, "you'd scatter, 'em in short order. No; you stay here, and say your prayers, and go to bed like a good girl, and don't worry about us. We'll come out all right. It's the other fellers' womenfolks that've cause to worry. Let them stay up and walk the floor." As the boys walked down to the jail they saw in the darkness squads of men moving around in a portentious way. At the jail were the Sheriff, wearing an anxious look, two or three citizens, and several soldiers, some with their arms in slings, others on crutches. "I'm so glad you've come," said the Sheriff. "Things is beginnin' to look very ugly outside. They've got the whole country stirred up, and men are coming in on every road. You take command, Sergeant Klegg. I've bin waitin' for you, so's I could drive over to the station and send a dispatch to the Governor. The station's about a mile from here, but I'll be back as soon as my horse'll bring me. I didn't want to send the dispatch till I was sure there was need of it, for I don't want to bring soldiers here for nothin'." The wheels of the Sheriff's buggy rattled over the graveled road, and a minute later there was a knock at the outside door. Si opened it and saw there a young man with a smoothly-shaven face, a shock of rumpled hair and wearing a silk hat, a black frockcoat and seedy vest and pantaloons. Si at once recognized him as a lawyer of the place. "Who's in charge here?" he asked. "I am, for the present," said Si. "There it is," said he, in a loud voice, that others might hear; "a military guard over citizens arrested without warrant of law. I have come, sir, in the name of the people of Indiana, to demand the immediate release of those men." "You kin go, sir, and report to them people that it won't be did," answered Si firmly. "But they've been arrested without due process of law. They've been arrested in violation of the Constitution and laws of the State of Indiana, which provide--" "I ain't here to run no debatin' society," Si interrupted, "but to obey my orders, which is to hold these men safe and secure till otherwise ordered." "I give you fair warning that you will save bloodshed by releasing the men peaceably. We don't want to shed blood, but--"