They pointed out that the order directed the commitment of the “Schoolteacher of Hickory Mountain District,” that this term was incorrect, that the prisoner had not been employed by the trustees, that he was not the School-teacher of Hickory Mountain District, and that the order ought not so to designate him. But the judge, smarting under the lash that had been laid on him, was in no mood to receive a further dictation. He refused to change what he had written. CHAPTER XVII |THE several persons who had forced the judge to commit the School-teacher to the county jail, having gone down from the courthouse, remained throughout the day in conference. It was evident that the circuit judge had acted against his own inclination, and that he could not be depended upon to hold the prisoner in custody. Some other method for ridding the community of this undesirable person must be found. Finally, after long reflection, they hit upon a plan. Night descended. In the village saloon, beyond the grove of oak trees behind the courthouse, the man who had received the money from the minister sat playing at cards. A rifle stood in the corner behind him. From time to time he arose, took up the rifle and went to the door. Keeping thus, in his fashion, an agreement which the sheriff had forgotten. The night advanced. At twelve o'clock the sheriff went down into the jail. He carefully unfastened the door opening into the grove of oak trees. Then he came along the corridor to the one iron cage that the jail contained. The door to this cage he likewise carefully unlocked. On a bedtick filled with straw, two men, convicted of larceny, were apparently asleep beside this door. On a bench against the wall behind them sat the School-teacher. His hat with its little crimson feather lay beside him. He sat unmoving, looking at something in his hand. When he observed the sheriff, he put the thing which he held in his hand back into the bosom of his coat. It was the broken toy horse which the little boy had given him. The sheriff beckoned with his finger. The School-teacher lifted his head and looked at the man, but he did not move from his place against the wall. The sheriff stepped delicately past the men, whom he believed to be asleep, and approached the School-teacher. “The door's open,” he said, “you can get out of the county before 't's daylight.” The School-teacher did not reply, and the sheriff went noiselessly out. Presently the two men got up from their pretended sleep and slipped out of the cage. The School-teacher rose and spoke to them. But they crept down the corridor. He followed. He came upon them as they opened the door leading out of the jail into the grove, stepped between them in the door and thrust them back. The act saved the men's lives, but it cost the School-teacher his own. There was the flash of a rifle from the saloon beyond the oak trees, and the School-teacher fell forward, his arms outstretched.