“Shucks!” said Jube easily, craning over the crevice in the floor in an effort to see the filly again, as if badgering the small denizen of the stall below were the praiseworthy errand which had brought him hither; he even broke off a bit of the ear of corn, and cast it down the cranny, in the hope that it might prove a lure. But the filly, though slow to learn, learned thoroughly, and his craft was in vain. There was a sensation among the others that savored more of angry disappointment than their disinterested professions of seeking to promote the welfare and the peace of the community might justify. They became more sensible of the hardship of their long restraint, and manifestly chafed at being thus balked of the expected excitement. More than one was restively striding back and forth upon the quaking flooring, and between Dake and Bassett arose a somewhat clamorous controversy concerning the number of times that they had thus fruitlessly watched and waited. “I ain’t half awake in the daytime, stumblin’ along arter the plow-tail or huntin’ like somebody walkin’ in thar sleep!” Bassett angrily exclaimed. “An’ ef we-uns war the men we-uns purtend ter be, we’d go in the daytime, an’ git Baintree off ter the woods, an’ hang him then.” “Oh, shet up, Joe!” called out Clem from where he lay half buried in the hay. He had scant imagination or sensitiveness, but his pulses had come to beat in sympathy with Marcella’s sentiments, and he felt as it were by proxy the cold thrill of horror at the murderous words; his nerves were tense with a sense of resistance to the bloody-minded cruelty of the careless proposition. “Ye fairly make me hone ter git up an’ beat that empty cymblin’ o’ a head off’n them narrer, spindlin’ shoulders o’ yourn.” He had not gauged the effect of his words. Before Bassett could reply Jepson whirled round, with a flash of the eye that was fiery even in the pallid moonlight. “An’ what ails _you-uns_ ter take this suddint turn, Clem Sanders?” he demanded, his voice vibrant with scorn. “The las’ time I hearn from you-uns ye war plumb crazed ’bout yer leetle tongs,—not kase they war bruk, but kase they hed been _mended_. ’Peared like ’twould kill ye kase ye couldn’t approve o’ that thar job. _I_ war ’feard we couldn’t find a rope long enough nor a tree high enough ter hang the man ez war so gin ter pernicious ways ez ter fool with them leetle tongs. An’ now ye ’pear not ter keer nuthin’ ’t all ’bout them desolated leetle tongs. Ye can’t hold ter nuthin’, Clem Sanders, an’ ennybody ez puts thar ’pendence in ye air leanin’ on a broken reed,—even ter shoein’ a horse-critter, ef the truth war knowed.”