In this manner, without confusion, an organization of two thousand men was formed, sixteen military companies officered and armed. Shortly after Coleman dismissed the meeting. Its members dispersed to their homes. Absolute quiet descended on the city, which slept under the moon. LVI To the thoughtful bystander all this preparation had its significance and its portent, which became the stronger when he contemplated the dispositions of the Law and Order party. The latter had been not less vigorous, and its strength could not be doubted. The same day that marked the organization of the Vigilantes saw the regular police force largely increased. In addition, the sheriff issued thousands of summonses to citizens, calling on them for service on a _posse_. These were in due form of the law. To refuse them meant to put one's self outside the law. A great many of them were responded to, for this reason only, by men not wholly in sympathy with either side. Once the oath was administered, these new deputies were confronted by the choice between perjury and service. To be sure the issuance of these summonses forced many of the neutral minded into the ranks of the Vigilantes. The refusal to act placed them on the wrong side of the law; and they felt that joining a party pledged to what practically amounted to civil war was only a short step farther. The various military companies were mustered, reminded of their oaths, called upon solemnly to fulfil their sworn duty, and marched to various strategic points about the jail and elsewhere. Parenthetically, their every appearance on the streets was well hissed by the populace. The governor was informally notified of a state of insurrection, and requested to send in the State militia. By evening all the forces of organized society were under arms. The leaders of the Law and Order party were jubilant. Their position appeared to be impregnable. They felt that back of them was all the weight of constituted authority, reaching, if need be, to the Federal Government at Washington. Opposed to them was lawlessness. Lawlessness had occasionally become dignified revolution, to be sure, but only when a race took its stand on a great issue; never when a handful espoused a local quarrel. Civil war it might be; but civil war, the wise politicians argued, must spread to become effective; and how could a civil war based on the shooting of an obscure editor in a three-year-old frontier town spread anywhere? Especially such an editor as James King of William.