The Law of the Land

horus of crickets and katydids began as the dusk settled down. Inside the kitchen, a detached building in which the plantation forces were now p

joined by another, until the whole pack, stirred by some tense fee

e task ahead. An hour passed that seemed a score of hours. Then, over toward the railroad track, there came a confused sound of muffled footfalls in ragged unison, and presently a sort of chant, broken now and then by shoutings. Suddenly there boomed out once more, full an

agement. At a window in the kitchen there appeared a head and arm thrust out. Eddring sa

re came a sharp, thin, inadequate report, and at the kitchen window the shoulders of the unfortunate flung upward and fell hanging. Eddring felt sick with horro

ll; that Colonel Calvin Blount was quite turned to stone; and that he himself was not there personally, but merely witnessing some fierce and fearful nightmare in which others were concerned. Once he heard Mrs. Ellison call repeatedly to Delphine, and was dimly conscious that there was no answer. Once, too, he saw, st

ious of a second insignificant rifle-crack at his right, and heard other shots from Blount's window at the left. His own work he did meth

kennels, and screams rang out where the maddened blacks, no longer human, were stabbing horses and cattle and leaving them half dead. Then there arose a sudden flicker of flame. Some voice cried out that they had fired the cotton-gin. From other buildings closer at hand there also arose

ddring, not pausing for speech, plunged out of the window, rushed across the gallery and over the narrow space to the shelt

lount, pulling him in at the window a

ng, breathless. "

ed Blount; "

t the broken pane. Once more Eddring felt hesitation at what seemed simple murder, yet still his rifle was rising when he felt a sudden dizziness assail him. A long arm pushed him away. He saw the brown barrel of the squirrel rifle rising into

clicking on the wire. Two hours later there came a special train, whose appearance put an end to the conflict. Dawn found the engine fuming at the station-house, and dawn saw the Big House still standing, charred a little at one corner, near which lay the body of the unfortunate who had sought to apply the brand. Eddring, still fai