"Uh-huh! So that's why you came, eh? I reckon you'd be mighty glad if I was a heap sicker, wouldn't you?" "I dunno, sah." "What's your warrant for, Mose?" said Calvin Blount, still quietly. "Stealing hogs this time, or killing somebody's cows, maybe? Out with it. Now, damn you, can't you read your own warrant?" "Well, sah, you-all know there wuz some killin'--my wah'nt--" "Yes, we-all _do_ know there was some killing, a little of it, the _beginning_ of it, a _part_ of it. Now, tell me, have you the nerve--are you _fool_ enough to come down here and try to arrest any of us white gentlemen for what we did a few days ago? Now talk. Tell me!" Blount's face took on its red fighting-hue. "Wait!" cried Eddring, speaking to Blount, "this is an officer of the law. This is the law." He rose and stepped between the two, even as the sheriff fumbled in his pocket for the paper which had lately been the bolster of his courage, the warrant which in grim jest had been issued by the court of that county to its duly instituted executive officer. Blount's face was an evil thing to see. At a grasp he caught from a belt which hung at the head board of the bed a well-worn revolver whitened where long friction on the scabbard had worn away the bluing. "Out of the way, Eddring," he cried. "Get your head out of the way, man!" His pistol sight followed steadily here and there, searching for a clean opening at its victim, now partly protected by Eddring as the latter sprang between them. Blount sat on the edge of the bed, his crippled arm fast at his side, his unshaven face aflame, his red eye burning in an unspeakable rage as it shone down the pistol-barrel, grimly hunting for a vital spot on the body of the man beyond him. "Get out, quick," cried Eddring, and pushed the man through the door. He sprang to Blount and pushed him in turn back upon the bed. "It's the law!" he reiterated. "The law be damned!" cried Calvin Blount. "Let me up! Let me at him! _Him_--to come around here to arrest _me_-that damned nigger! You, Bill!" he called out, raising his voice. "Throw him off my place. Kill him!" He struggled furiously with Eddring in his effort to gain the door. The new sheriff of Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's side, also, Jack, and between them they laid hold of the sheriff of the county and pushed him out of the house and across the lawn, administering meanwhile to his body repeated deliberate and energetic kicks, and thus enthusiastically propelling him into the very presence of his waiting posse, who raised never a hand to resent these indignities to one who had been their chosen representative for the advancement of their race.