Part 36 (1/2)

But Sim, who had never served for love, found the collar of his slavery, just then, galling almost beyond endurance, and his eyes were sombrely resentful.

”I reckon, Bas, ye'd better hire ye another man,” he made churlish response. ”I don't relish this hyar job overly much nohow.... Ye fo'ced me ter layway ther man ... but when ye comes ter makin' a common thief outen me, I'm ready ter quit.”

At this hint of insubordination Rowlett's anger came back upon him, but now instead of frothy self-betrayal it was cold and domineering.

He leaned forward, gazing into the face upon which the lantern showed spots of high-light and traceries of deep shadow, and his voice was one of deliberate warning:

”I counsels ye ter take sober thought, Sim, afore ye contraries me too fur. Ye says I compelled ye ter layway Parish Thornton--but ye kain't nuver prove thet--an' ef I hed ther power ter fo'ce ye then hit war because I knowed things erbout ye thet ye wouldn't love ter hev told. I knows them things still!” He paused to let that sink in, and Sim Squires stood breathing heavily. Every sense and fibre of his nature was in that revolt out of which servile rebellions are born. Every element of hate centred about his wish to see this arrogant master dead at his feet--but he acknowledged that the collar he wore was locked on his neck.

So he schooled his face into something like composure and even nodded his head.

”You got mad unduly, Bas,” he said, ”an' I reckon I done ther same. I says ergin ef ye hain't satisfied with ther way I've acted, I'm ready ter quit. If ye _air_ satisfied, all well an' good.”

Bas Rowlett picked up the diary of the revolutionary Dorothy Thornton and twisted it carelessly into a roll which he thrust out of sight between a plate-girder of the low cabin and its eaves.

Jerry Black came one Sat.u.r.day night about that time to the wretched cabin where he and his wife, a brood of half-clothed children, two hound-dogs, three cats, and a pig dwelt together--and beat his wife.

For years Jerry had been accustomed to doing precisely the same thing, not with such monotonous regularity as would have seemed to him excessive, but with periodical moderation. Between times he was a s.h.i.+ftless, indulgent, and somewhat henpecked little man of watery eyes, a mouth with several missing teeth, and a limp in one ”sprung leg.” But on semi-annual or quarterly occasions his lordliness of nature a.s.serted itself in a drunken orgy. Then he went on a ”high-lonesome” and whooped home with all the corked-up effervescence of weeks and months bubbling in his soul for expression. Then he proved his latent powers by knocking about the woman and the brattish crew, and if the whole truth must be told, none of those who felt the weight of his hand were totally undeserving of what they got.

But on this occasion Jerry was all unwittingly permitting himself to become a p.a.w.n in a larger game of whose rules and etiquette he had no knowledge, and his domestic methods were no longer to pa.s.s uncensored in the privacy and sanct.i.ty of the home.

His woman, seizing up the smallest and dirtiest of her offspring, fled shrieking b.l.o.o.d.y murder to the house of the nearest neighbour, followed by a procession of other urchins who added their shrill chorus to her predominant solo. When they found asylum and exhibited their bruises, they presented a summary of accusation which kindled resentment and while Jerry slept off his spree in uninterrupted calm this indignation spread and impaired his reputation.

For just such a tangible call to arms the ”riders,” as they had come to be termed in the bated breath of terror, had been waiting. It was necessary that this organization should a.s.sert itself in the community in such vigorous fas.h.i.+on as would demonstrate its existence and seriousness of purpose.

No offence save arson could make a more legitimate call upon a body of citizen regulators than that of wife-beating and the abuse of small children. So it came about that after the wife had forgiven her indignities and returned to her ascendency of henpecking, which was a more chronic if a less acute cruelty than that which she had suffered, a congregation of masked men knocked at the door and ordered the quaking Jerry to come forth and face civic indignation.

He came because he had no choice, limping piteously on his sprung leg with his jaw hanging so that the missing teeth were abnormally conspicuous. Outside his door a single torch flared and back of its waver stood a semicircle of unrecognized avengers, coated in black slickers with hats turned low and masks upon their faces. They led him away into the darkness while more l.u.s.tily than before, though for an opposite reason, the woman and the children shrieked and howled.

Jerry trembled, but he bit into his lower lip and let himself be martyred without much whimpering. They stripped him in a lonely gorge two miles from his abode and tied him, face inward, to a sapling. They cow-hided him, then treated him to a light coat of tar and feathers and sent him home with most moral and solemn admonitions against future brutalities. There the victims of that harshness for which he had been ”regulated” wept over him and swore that a better husband and father had never lived.

But Jerry had suffered for an abstract idea rather than a concrete offence, and both Parish Thornton and Hump Doane recognized this fact when with sternly set faces they rode over and demanded that he give them such evidence as would lead to apprehension and conviction of the mob leaders.

Black s.h.i.+vered afresh. He swore that he had recognized no face and no voice. They knew he lied yet blamed him little. To have given any information of real value would have been to serve the public and the law at too great a cost of danger to himself.

But Parish Thornton rode back, later and alone, and by diplomatic suasion sought to sift the matter to its solution.

”I didn't dast say nuthin' whilst Hump war hyar,” faltered the first victim of the newly organized ”riders,” ”an' hit's plum heedless ter tell ye anything now, but yit I did recognize one feller--because his mask drapped off.”

”I hain't seekin' ter fo'ce no co'te evidence outen ye now, Jerry,” the young leader of the Thorntons a.s.sured him. ”I'm only strivin' ter fethom this matter so's I'll know whar ter start work myself. Ye needn't be afeared ter trust me.”

”Wa'al, then, I'll tell ye.” They were talking in the woods, where autumnal colour splashed its gorgeousness in a riot that intoxicated the eye, and no one was near them, but the man who had been tarred and feathered lowered his voice and spoke with a terrorized whine.

”Thet feller I reecognized ... hit war old Hump Doane's own boy ... Pete Doane.”

Parish Thornton straightened up as though an electric current had been switched through his body. His face stiffened in amazement and the pain of sore perplexity.

”Air ye plum onmistakably sh.o.r.e, Jerry?” he demanded and the little man nodded his head with energetic positiveness.