"Not right off; they're sort-uh discairaged like. A few uv 'em wuz cocked un primed to come a Sunday night,--sech uv 'em as hadn't gin it up arter ridin' over to Perrysburg,--but we fooled 'em ag'in. Pete Markham, the depitty sher'f, jes' sidled over to camp-meetin' un let on 't he wuz a-lookin' fer somebody what knowed sumpin' about a young feller weth red whiskers un one eye a leetle crossed, like. Magill, the clerk, went over to camp-meetin' un down onto the Run, un gin it out on the sly like zif he could n' keep in, that they'd diskivered the tracks uv a young feller from another k-younty weth red whiskers, un so on, that had done the shootin'. The story run like a perrary fire in a high wind un sort-uh mixed 'em up in the'r minds, like. I've got it fixed so as they can't come down unbeknownst to me; un ef wust _comes_ to wust, w'y, I've got my eye sot onto a crowbar." "A crowbar? What would you do with a crowbar, Bob?" asked Lincoln, with a puzzled contraction of the brows. "You wouldn't try to whale the whole crowd with it, would you?" "W'y, Abe, I 'low ef a rale tight pinch comes, to try a tussle weth that air jail. I don't know's I could prize out one uv them air iron grates, but ef 't wuz to _come_ to that, I'd try to git Tom out uv harm's way. You say the word un I'll find some way to let 'im out anyhow." "No, no; don't do that. If he runs away he'll be caught, and then he'll be sure to be lynched, or hanged. Let me try the law first, and then it'll be time enough to use crow-bars afterward if I fail. Do you know Dave Sovine?" "When I see 'im. He's an ornery kind uv a cuss. I don't know 's he rickollecks me." "So much the better if he doesn't. You must get him to tell you all about the shooting--his story of it. Get him to tell more than was brought out at the inquest. Make him explain it, and find out if he's going to clear out before the trial." "I heern tell 't he won't talk," said Bob. "The prosecutin' attorney's shut 'im up tight 'z bees-wax, they say." Lincoln mused awhile. "If the prosecuting attorney has shut him up, you must open him. Contrive some way to get his story and find out what he means to do."