O you are the only lady member of the secret gang that stole my prisoner!” the sheriff said, laughingly. “The boys told me all about it.”

“I wasn't taken in till they had done all the work,” Helen smiled. “I was only an honorary addition, elected more to keep my mouth shut than for any other service I could perform.”

“Oh, that was it!” Braider laughed. “Well, they certainly put the thing through. I've mixed up in a lot of hair-raising scrapes in my time, but that kidnapping business was the brightest idea ever sprung from a man's head. This fellow Dwight is a corker. Did he tell you what he went through last night?”

“Not a thing,” replied Helen; “the truth is, I have an idea he was trying to mislead me.”

“Well, he certainly was if he didn't tell you he had the hardest fight for his life and that nigger's that ever a man made. You noticed how hoarse he was, didn't you? That is due to it. The poor chap was up all last night and drove the biggest part of to-day. I'll bet, strong as he is, he's as limber as a dish-rag.”

“Then he really had trouble?” Helen breathed, heavily.

“Trouble! And he didn't mention it to you? Young men in this day and time certainly play their cards peculiar. When I was on the carpet we boys had a way of making the most to women folks of everything we did, and it was generally the loudest talker that won the game. But here I find this 'town dude,' as the country people call his sort, actually trying to make you think he went to Chattanooga last night in a Pullman car. Good Lord, it gives me the all-overs to think of it! I heard all about it. I met a man who was along, and he told me the whole thing from start to finish.”

“What was it?” Helen asked, breathlessly.

“Why,” answered Braider, casting a glance towards Dwight's as if fearful of being overheard, “I didn't know it, but somehow the mob had got wind of what Carson intended to do, and, bless you, they were waiting for him near the State line primed and cocked. The boy's enemies had fixed him. They had worked the mob up to the highest pitch of fury with all sorts of tales against Pete. They had produced men who had really heard the nigger threaten to harm Johnson, and they themselves testified that Carson was saving the nigger only to capture black voters as their friend and benefactor. The mob was mad as Tucker at him for tricking them the other night, and they certainly had it in for him.”

“They were mad at Carson personally, then?” Helen said.

“Were they? They were ready to drink his blood. They halted the buggy, took them both out, and tied them.”

“Tied Car—” Helen's voice died away, and she stood staring at Braider unable to speak.

“Yes, they tied them both and led them off into the woods. They then fastened Pete to a stump and piled sticks and brush around him and told Carson they were going to make him see them burn the boy alive and when that was done they intended to silence his tongue by shooting him dead in his tracks.”

Helen covered her face with her hands and stifled a groan.

“His power of gab saved him, Miss Helen,” Braider went on. “It saved them both. It wasn't any begging, either; that wouldn't have gone with that sort of gang. With his hands and feet tied he began to talk—that's what ails his throat now—and the man that confessed it to me said such rapid fire of words and argument never before rolled from human lips. He told them he knew they would kill him; that they were a merciless band of desperadoes; but he was going to fire some truths at them that they would remember after he was gone, I'm no talker, Miss Helen. I can't possibly repeat what the man told me. He said at first Carson couldn't get their attention, but after awhile, when they were getting ready to apply the match, something in Dwight's voice caught their ear and they paused. He talked and talked, until a man behind him, in open defiance, cut the cords that held his hands. Later another cut his feet loose, and then Carson walked boldly up to Pete and stood beside him, and although a growl of fury was still in the air he kept talking. The man that told me about it said Carson first picked up one of the sticks around the prisoner and hurled it from him to emphasize something he said, then another and another, until the mob saw him kicking the sticks away and roaring out an offer to fight the whole bunch single-handed. Gee whiz! I'd have given ten years of my life to have heard it. He hadn't a thing to say in favor of Pete's general character; he said the boy was an idle, fun-loving, shiftless fellow, but he was innocent of the crime charged against him and he should not die like a dog. He spoke of the fine characters of Pete's mother and father and of the old woman's grief, and then, Miss Helen, he said something about you, and the man that told me about it said that one thing did more to soften and quell the crowd than anything else.”

“He said something about me?” Helen cried. “Me?”

“Yes; no names was mentioned, but they knew who he meant,” Braider went on. “Carson spoke of your family and of the close bond of human sympathy between it and all the blacks that had once belonged to your folks, and said that the daughter of that house, the most beautiful womanly character that had ever blessed the South, was praying at that moment for the safety of the prisoner, and if they carried out their plans she would shed tears of sorrow. 'Your intentions are good,' Carson said. 'You are all sincere men acting, as you see it, in the interests of the women of the South. Listen to this gentlewoman's prayer uttered through my mouth to-night for mercy and human justice.'

“It fairly swept them off their feet, Miss Helen. The man that told me about it said he never saw a more thoroughly shamed lot of men in his life; he said they released Pete and led the horses around and stood like mile-posts with nothing to say as Carson drove away. The man that told me said he'd bet ninety per cent, of the gang would vote for Dwight this fall. But I must be going; if that young buck knew I'd been telling you all this he'd give me a tongue-lashing, and I don't want any of his sort in mine.”

Helen waited for about ten minutes alone on the grass—waited for Carson. When he finally came out and hurried towards her, he found her with her handkerchief pressed over her eyes.

“Why, what is the matter, Helen?” he asked, in sudden concern.

She remained silent for a moment, and then with glistening eyes she looked up at him as he stood pale and disturbed, the plaster still marking his wound and gleaming in the starlight.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she asked, laying her hand tenderly on his arm, her voice holding cadences of ineffable sweetness.

“Oh, Braider's been talking to you, I see!” Dwight said, with a frown of displeasure.

“Why, didn't you tell me, Carson?” she repeated, putting her disengaged hand on his arm and raising her appealing face till it was close to his.

He shrugged his shoulders, still frowning, and then said, flushing under her urgent gaze: “Because, Helen, you've already seen and heard too much of this awful stuff. It really is not fit for a gentle, sensitive girl like you.”

“Oh, Carson,” she cried, her suffused face held even closer to his, “you are the dearest, sweetest boy in the world!” and she turned and left him, left him alone there in his fatigue, alone under the starlight to fight as he had never fought before the deathless yearning for her.