Slowly Jim swept the group of scowling, wondering faces on the other side of the table. Then, in his slow drawling speech, he said, “Most of you here was in the old organization. Tom and Ed and me knows how it started away back, for we was in it at the beginnin’. Wash, here, was the last man to join, ’fore we was busted, and he was the youngest member, too; bein’ only a boy, but big for his age. You remember how he was taken in on account of his daddy’s bein’ killed by the gov’ment. “Didn’t ary one of us fellers that started it ever think the Bald Knobber’s would get to be what they did. We began it as a kind of protection, times bein’ wild then. But first we knowed some was a usin’ the order to protect themselves in all kinds of devilment, and things went on that way, ’cause nobody didn’t dare say anything; for if they did they was tried as traitors, and sentenced to the death. “I ain’t a sayin’, boys, that I was any better than lots of others, for I reckon I done my share. But when my girl’s mother died, away down there in Texas, I promised her that I’d be a good daddy to my little one, and since then I done the best I know. “After things quieted down, and I come back with my girl, Wash here got the old crowd, what was left of us, together, and wanted to reorganize again. I told you then that I’d go in with you and stand by the old oath, so long as it was necessary to protect ourselves from them that might be tryin’ to get even for what had been done, but that I wouldn’t go no farther. I don’t mind tellin’ you now, boys—though I reckon you know it—that I went in because I knowed what you’d do for me if I didn’t. And I didn’t dare risk leaving my girl all alone then. I’ve ’tended every meetin’, and done everything I agreed, and there ain’t a man here can say I ain’t.” Some of the men nodded, and “That’s so,” and “You’re right, Jim” came from two or three. Jim went on, “You know that I voted against it, and tried to stop you when you hung old man Lewis. I thought then, and I think yet, that it was spite work and not protection; and you know how I was against goin’ for the shepherd, and you went when I didn’t know it. As for this here bank business, I didn’t even know of it, ’till you give me this stuff here for me to keep for you. I had to take it ’count of the oath. “It’s got to be just like it was before. We come together first to keep each other posted, and save ourselves if there was any call to, and little by little you’ve been led into first one thing and then another, ’till you’re every bit and grain as bad as the old crowd was, only there ain’t so many of you, and you’ve kept me in it ’cause I didn’t dare leave my girl.” Jim paused. There was an ominous silence in the room.