HOAG had become so nervous and low-spirited that he found himself every day waking earlier than usual. The dusky shadows of night were still hovering over the earth one morning in August when, being unable to return to sleep, he rose and went to a window and looked out. He was preparing to shave himself when he happened to see a man leaning against the front fence watching the house attentively.

“It looks like Purvynes,” Hoag mused. “I wonder what on earth the fellow wants. This certainly ain't in his regular beat.”

Hoag put down his mug and brush, listened to see if Jack and his grandmother in the adjoining room were awake, then, hearing no sound in that part of the house, he cautiously tiptoed out into the corridor, opened the front door, and crossed the veranda to the lawn. He now saw that the man was indeed Purvynes.

“Some new trouble may be brewin',” Hoag surmised, “or he wouldn't be out as early as this.” Purvynes saw him approaching and moved along the fence to the gate, where he stood waiting, a stare of subdued excitement blended with other emotions in his dim gray eyes. His hair was tousled, his grizzled head untrimmed, and there were shadows, lines, and angles in his sallow visage.

“Early for you to be so far from home, ain't it?” was Hoag's introductory question.

“I reckon it is, Cap,” the man answered, sheepishly, his lips quivering. “I didn't know whether you was here or off in Atlanta, but—but I thought I'd walk over an' see. I've been awake for an hour or more—in fact, I hardly closed my eyes last night. My women folks are nigh distracted, Cap. I was here yesterday, but Cato said you was over at your new mill. I'd 'a' come after supper, if my women folks hadn't been afraid to be left alone in the dark.”

“Huh! I see.”

There was an ominous pause. It was as if Hoag dreaded further revelations. He felt sure that something decidedly unpleasant lay beneath the man's perturbed exterior. For once in his life Hoag failed to show irritation, and his next question was put almost in the tone of entreaty.

“What's got into you an' them all of a sudden?” he faltered.

“You may well ask it,” Purvynes said with a voluminous sigh. “A fellow may try to put on a brave front, an' act unconcerned when trouble's in the wind, but if he's got a gang o' crazy women an' children hangin' on to his shirt-tail he is in a fix.”

“Well, what is it—what is it?” Hoag demanded, with staccato asperity born of his growing anxiety.

For answer Purvynes fumbled in the pocket of his patched and tattered coat and produced a folded sheet of foolscap paper which he awkwardly attempted to spread out against the palings of the fence.

“Summoned to court?” Hoag smiled, riding a wave of sudden relief. “Ah, I see—moonshinin'. Well, you needn't let that bother you. We'll all stick together an' swear black is white. I see. You are afeard them young devils may turn ag'in' us out o' spite, but I can fix all that. You just lie low, an'—”

“God knows 'tain't that!” Purvynes held the quivering sheet open. “If that was all I'd not bother; I wouldn't mind goin' to Atlanta again, but we are up ag'in' som'n a sight worse. What do you think o' this paper?”

Hoag took the sheet, and looked at it with a dull, widening stare. It was headed by the crude design of two cross-bones and a skull which his “klan” had used in frightening the negroes with gruesome threats and warnings. Beneath the drawing was the following:

TO AWL IT CONSERNS

This is to inform the grate White mens klan that the Blak Foxes has met in secret session and took axion to protect ther rights. Paysyence has seased to bee a vurture. The white klan has lernt the foxes the trick of how to work in the dark. Wait and see the mighty fall. We know who the Captin is at last. We also know some of his main followers who is workin for his smile and his gold. We don't want his cash. We are after his meat and bones. Hel will take his sole. His body wil hang for crows to peck out the eyes. No power above or below this earth can save him. He wil never know the day or the hour. But his doom is seeled. They need Marse Jimmy down where the worm dyeth not. He has sowed his seed, and his harvest is rype. Woe unto hym and awl his gang.

Signed in the blood of Blak Buck the Captin of the Foxes.

his (Blak X Buck) mark.

The sheet of paper shook, though the morning air was as still as a vacuum. Hoag was as white as death could have made him. He silently folded the paper and handed it back. But Purvynes waved it aside with a dumb gesture of despair.

“Whar did you git it?” finally fell from Hoag's lips.

“It was tacked up on my corn-crib. I seed it from the kitchen window yesterday mornin' 'fore breakfast. I went out an' pulled it down.”

Hoag had never attempted a more fragile sneer. “An' you let a puny thing like that scare you out o' your socks,” he said, flamboyantly.

Purvynes's hat-brim went down and his eyes were not visible to the desperately alert gaze of his companion. “I can take my own medicine, Cap,” he answered, doggedly, “but I can't manage women. They read the thing 'fore I could hide it, an' you know what excited women would do at the sight of a sheet like that. My wife's been ag'in' our doin's all along, anyway.”

Hoag perused the sheet again, his putty-like lips moving, as was his habit when reading.

“How do you reckon,” he glanced at the drawn face beside him, “how do you reckon they got on to me as—as the main leader?”

Purvynes was quite sure he could answer the question. “Nape Welborne's gang give it away. They've been braggin' right an' left about how Nape forced you to back down that night. They've been drunk an' talked 'fore black an' white like a pack o' fools.”

“But from this,” Hoag tapped the fence with the folded sheet, “it looks like the nigger that wrote, this thinks I am still the head.”

“An' so much the worse,” Purvynes moaned, and he clutched the fence nervously as if to steady himself. “You an' me an' all us old members has to suffer for the drunken pranks of them young roustabouts. When they shot up nigger-town last week, an' abused the women an' children, the darkies laid it at our door. In fact, that is the cause of this very move. It was the last straw, as the sayin' is. They've got plumb desperate, an' when niggers work underhand they will resort to anything. It's quar, as my wife says, that we never thought they might turn the tables an' begin our own game.”

Hoag shrugged his shoulders, but made no comment. His shaggy brows had met and overlapped. His eyes had the glare of a beast at bay.

“My wife thought”—Purvynes evidently felt that the point was a delicate one, but he made it with more ease than he could have done on any former occasion—“she thought maybe your boy Henry might have got onto you an' talked reckless, but if he did, Cap, it was some time ago, for the boy ain't like he used to be. He's more serious-like. I got it straight from one o' the gang he used to run with that he's really quit his old ways an' gone to work.”

“It's Nape Welborne's lay-out,” Hoag declared. “They've done it out o' pure spite an' enmity ag'in' me.”

Purvynes had averted his eyes; he seemed to feel that the conversation was drifting into useless waters, so far as he was personally concerned. “Well, I just come over. Cap, to ask you what you think I ought to do.” he finally got out, as if aided by his clutch on the fence, to which he clung quite automatically.

“You?” Hoag emphasized the word.

“Why, yes, me. You see, Cap, my women say they simply won't stay here a single day longer. They are scared as nigh death as any folks you ever saw. That's why I come to you for—for advice an' to ax a favor. I'm in an awful plight. I owe a good deal on my land. My brother is well fixed, out in Texas, you know, an' I can move thar, but I'll have to raise some ready cash. My farm would be good for another loan, an' you are the only money-lender I know. You see, you know why I have to have the money, an' I couldn't explain so well to a bank. So my wife said—”

“I don't care what she said.” Hoag's mind seemed to be making rapid flights to and from his own numerous holdings. “If you think you got anything at stake, look at me,” he plunged, dejectedly. “Why, the black imps could—could—”

“I ain't carin' about my farm,” Purvynes broke in irrelevantly. “It's peace of mind I want, an' freedom from the awful chatter of my folks. Even the little ones are scared half to death. They've picked up a word here an' thar an' follow me about whimperin' an' beggin' to be tuck to a place of safety. Women may know how to scrub an' cook an' sew, but they can't keep a secret like our'n when they are under pressure like this. The wives of all the old klan—mark my words—will be together before twelve o'clock to-day. They will brand the'rselves an' us by it, but they won't care a red cent. They'd go to the gallows in a bunch if they could talk about it beforehand. Cap, a hundred dollars is all I need, an'—”

“Don't call me Cap no more,” Hoag snapped, angrily, “an' don't ask me for money, either. I hain't got none to lend. Besides, you can't leave your property no more than I can mine. We've got to stay an'—”

“Your wife's dead, Cap—Jim, I mean—an' you kin talk, but my folks will git away from these mountains if they have to foot it on ragged uppers. They simply won't stay. Jim, my trouble is a sight deeper than I've admitted. I—I feel like a dead man that nobody cares enough about to bury. Say, I'm goin' to tell you, an' then I know you will pity me if it is in you to pity any man. Jim, I always thought my wife loved me as much as the average woman loves the father of her children; but last night—last night, away late, when she couldn't sleep, she come over to my bed an' set down on the rail an' talked straighter than she ever has in her life. Jim, she said—she said she thought I ought to be willin' to go away for good an' all, an' leave 'er an' the children, since I was responsible for this calamity. She said she was sure her an' the children would be let alone if I'd go clean off an' never show up ag'in, an' that she'd rather work 'er fingers to the bone than be bothered like she is. Lord, Lord, Jim, I felt so awful that I actually cried an' begged for mercy like a whipped child. I'd always thought she was a soft-hearted, lovin' woman, but she was as hard as flint. She said she'd rather never lay eyes on me ag'in than have this thing hangin' over her an' the children. She finally agreed, if I'd git the money from you an' leave at once, that maybe her an' the rest would follow. So that's why I come to see you. Jim, a rich man like you can rake up a small amount like that to accommodate an old—”

“And leave me with the bag to hold.” Hoag's misery was eager for any sort of company. “I won't lend you a cent—not a cent!” he snorted. “We've got to—to fight this thing out. No bunch o' lazy niggers can scare the life out o' me.”

“But we are tied hand an' foot, Jim,” Purvynes faltered. “The black brain that writ that warnin' is equal to a white man's when it comes to that sort o' warfare. I know the threat word for word by heart. I can shut my eyes an' see the skull an' bones. Even if we went to law for protection we'd have to show that sheet, an' you wouldn't want to do that as it stands, an' I don't believe all the Governor's guards in the State could help us out, for in these mountains the niggers kin stay under cover an' pick us off one by one as we walk about, like sharpshooters lyin' in the weeds an' behind trees an' rocks. Then thar is a danger that maybe you hain't thought of.”

“What's that?” Hoag asked, with a dumb stare into the other's waxlike countenance.

“Why, if they take a notion they kin poison all the drinkin'-water anywhars about. Niggers don't look far ahead. They wouldn't even think o' the widespread results to them as well as us.”

A desperate look of conviction crept across Hoag's eyes. At this juncture he heard the front door of his house open, and, turning, he saw Jack come out on the veranda and eagerly start down the steps toward him.

“Stay thar!” Hoag waved his hand dejectedly. “I'm comin' up right away.”

Jack paused on the steps, a beautiful figure with supple, slender limbs, high, white brow under waving curls. Even at that distance, and through the lowering mists which lay on the grass like downy feathers dropped from the wings of dawn, the two men marked the boy's expression of startled surprise over being so peremptorily stopped. He sat down on the steps, his beautiful eyes fixed inquiringly on his father.

“I'd send that boy off, anyway,” Purvynes said, as if thinking for himself.

“You say you would!” slowly and from a mouth that twitched. “What do you mean by—that?”

“I mean all the niggers know how you dote on 'im, Jim. I've heard folks say that they didn't believe you ever loved any other human alive or dead. The niggers that got up that warnin' wouldn't hesitate to strike at you even through a purty innocent chap like that.”

Hoag dropped his stare to the ground. He clutched a paling with a pulseless hand and leaned forward. “I reckon maybe you are right,” he muttered. “I've heard of 'em doin' the like, even kidnappin' an' makin' threats of bodily torture.”

Hoag glanced at his son again, and, catching his eyes, he waved his hand and forced a smile. “I'm comin'!” he called out. “See if our breakfast is ready. We'll have it together.”

He was turning away as if forgetful of the caller's presence, when Purvynes stopped him.

“What about that money, Jim?” he inquired, slowly, desperately.

“I can't let you have it,” was Hoag's ultimatum, in a rising tone of blended despair and surliness. “We've got to fix some way to head this thing off an' must stand together. Your folks will have to be reasonable. I'll come over an' talk to—”

“No, no, no, no!” in rapid-fire. “Don't come about, Jim. That would scare 'em worse than ever. They was afraid some nigger might see me here this mornin', an' if you was to come—”

“Huh, I'll be looked on like a leper in a pest-house 'fore long, I reckon!” Hoag snarled, but perhaps not so much from anger as from a sense of the fitness of the remark.

“Well, don't come, Jim,” Purvynes repeated, bluntly. “If you hain't got no money for me, all well an' good, but don't come about. My women are crazy, an' the sight of you wouldn't help at all.”