"No, sir; my impression is, that it was after I was probate judge that that occurred. I think I told him that by virtue of the office that I held, if he did not desist from this--I know that was my assertion to the soldier." "Was that a proper act for an officer, a conservator of the peace?" "I do not know that it was, but the acts of violence going on, I thought, demanded it, and the sheriff of the county had left,--and left these soldiers there to do just what they pleased, and they were drunk; and when I asked them several times to desist from this thing, and this fellow clapped his hand on his pistol,--and I had a large derringer in my pocket, and I told him he should do it." "You drew your pistol on him?" "Yes, sir; I drew my pistol." "Was it your duty to arrest him?" "Perhaps it might have been, sir. I did not think so; in the midst of that excitement, I did not think so, sir." "If a peace officer set such examples, they cannot complain that they are followed by others." "Yes, sir; that may be all true, but the peace officers had all forsaken me and I was there, either to let the election go by default or else to pursue that course,--and I resolved on that to get him away from there." "Would not the course have been just as effectual if you had arrested him in the name of the law?" "I think the parties around him would have resisted arrest." "Would not they have equally resisted your firing upon him?" CHAPTER SIXTEEN IN TUSCALOOSA Two young men belonging in the hills of Tuscaloosa county, were journeying in a wagon, bound homeward from a trading trip to Northport (across the river from Tuscaloosa). Passing a negro lad, they jestingly pretended that they would kidnap him. In alarm, the boy fled to his home and informed his father that he had been mistreated; and the man armed himself with a gun and pursued the unconscious young men. Overtaking them, he leveled his gun menacingly and cursed the unarmed and defenseless white men. That night they, with some friends, repaired to the negro's house to chastise him. He had assembled a number of armed friends in anticipation of an attack. He had loosened some of the flooring, and through the opening thus provided crawled to the edge of the house, and, emerging from this position, crept unperceived to the near-by bushes. While the whites were parleying with the inmates of the house, he discharged both barrels of his gun, and young Finley fell dead. Shots from the house succeeded. Attacked front and rear, the whites withdrew in disorder. News of the occurrence quickly spread far and wide.