IN the few days immediately following this incident Hoag became convinced that he had reached the gravest crisis of his career. For the first time in his experience his helplessness was as real a thing as had been his prowess in the past. A drab veil reeking with despair seemed to hang between him and every visible object. He looked in stunned amazement at the people who were going on with their daily duties as if nothing serious had happened or was impending. He saw them smile, heard them laugh, and noted their interest in the smallest details.

Death! He had been absolutely blind to its claims, but now it had taken a grim clutch upon his mind. It was made plain by men whom he had seen die—yes, by men whom he had caused to die. Their pleadings rang in his ears, and they themselves seemed to dog his steps like vague shapes from a persistent nightmare.

In some unaccountable way he was conscious of a sense of being less and less attached to his body. There were moments in which he felt that his limbs were dead, while he himself was as vital as ever. He was in a sort of conscious trance, in which his soul was trying to break the bonds of the flesh, and flee to some point of safety which was constantly appearing and vanishing.

Above all, the sight of his child playing about the place was the most incongruous. He avoided joining Jack on the lawn at any time, fearing that the act might result in disaster of some easily comprehensible sort. But within the house he tried to atone for the neglect by a surplus of affection. He would hold the boy in his arms for hours at a time and fondle him as he had never fondled him before. He became desperate in his confinement to the house, and one day he decided that he would visit some of the most faithful of his friends, and on his horse he started out. He rode from farm to farm, but soon noticed that a rare thing was happening. Invariably the women, like awed, impounded cattle, would come to the doors, and with downcast eyes and halting voices inform him that their fathers or husbands were away. At one farm he saw Bert Wilson, the owner, and one of the older members of the klan, on the bank of the little creek which ran through his place, and hitching his horse to the rail fence, Hoag, unnoticed by the farmer, climbed over and approached him. Wilson was fishing, and with his eyes on his rod failed to see Hoag till he was suddenly addressed.

“Hello, what sort o' luck?” Hoag asked, assuming a lightness of tone and mien that was foreign to his habit.

The man was heavy-set, florid, unbearded, and past middle age. He turned suddenly; his blue eyes flashed and glowed; he looked toward the roof of his house above the thicket in the distance and furtively bent his neck to view the road as if fearful of being seen.

“Oh, just so so!” he answered, doggedly.

“What sort o' bait are you usin'?”

“Crickets an' grasshoppers. The traps up at your mill catch all the big fish. Minnows an' suckers are good enough for us common folks, Jim Hoag.”

“I'm goin' to do away with them traps, Bert,” Hoag said, diplomatically, and he sank down on the grass, and thrusting his hands into his pockets he took out two cigars and some matches. “Have a smoke,” he said, holding a cigar toward the fisherman.

“No, thanky.” Wilson drew his line from the water and looked at the hook. Hoag noted, with a touch of dismay, that the hook held no vestige of bait, and yet the fisherman gravely lowered it into the water and stood regarding it with a sullen stare.

“Hain't quit smokin', have you?”

Wilson stole another look at the road, and allowed his glance to sweep on to his house. Then he raised his rod, caught the swinging line in a firm grip, and glared at the face in the cloud of blue smoke.

“I ain't a-goin' to use none o' yore tobacco, Jim Hoag.” The words sank deep into the consciousness of the listener.

“You say you ain't!” Hoag shrank visibly. Desperate compromises filtered into his brain, only to be discarded. “Say, Bert, what's got into you, anyway?”

The fat man hesitated. His cheeks and brow flushed red.

“This much has got into me, Hoag,” he began, “an' I'm man enough to speak out open. Us fellows have been followin' your lead like a damned lot o' idiotic sheep. You always talked up protection, protection to our women an' homes, when it now looks like you was just doin' it to feel your importance as a leader in some'n or other. You kept the thing a-goin', rid it like a hobby-hoss. Time after time my judgment told me to stay out o' the raids you instigated, but thar was always a fool notion among us that what one done all had to do or be disgraced, an' so we went on until natural hatred o' you an' your bull-headed game has brought down this calamity. Now, what I ask, an' what a lot more of us ask, is fur you to take your medicine like a man, an' not pull us into the scrape. If you will do this, all well an' good. You are the only one singled out so far, an' if you will stay away from the rest of us, an' not draw fire on us, all may go well; but, Jim Hoag—I reckon it's my Scotch blood a-talkin' now—if you don't do it, as God is my holy witness I wouldn't be astonished to see the old klan rise an'—an' make an example of you, to satisfy the niggers an' show whar we stand. I needn't say no more. You know what I mean. The klan has turned ag'in' you. You fooled 'em a long time; but since you knuckled down to Nape Welborne like you did they believe YOU are a rank coward, an', Jim Hoag, no coward kin force hisse'f on a lot o' men with families when by doin' it he puts 'em all in danger. Most of us believe that if you was shot, or poisoned, an' put plumb out o' the way, this thing would blow over. You kin act fair about this, or you needn't; but if you don't do it you will be made to. You fed an' pampered this thing up an' it has turned its claws an' fangs ag'in' you—that is all. I'm desperate myself. You are a rich man, but, by God! I feel like spittin' in your face, as you set thar smokin' so calm when my wife an' children are unable to sleep at night, an' afraid to go to the spring in daytime. Now, I'll say good-momin'. I'm goin' furder down the creek, an' I don't want you to follow me.”

“Looky' here, Bert.” There was a piteous, newborn frailty in Hoag's utterance. “Listen a minute. I—”

“I'm done with you,” Wilson waved his hand firmly. “Not another word. You are in a hell of a plight, but it don't concern me. Under your rule I was tryin' to protect my family, an' now that I am from under it I'll do the same. My folks come fust with me.”

With the sun in his face, his knees drawn close to his chin, Hoag sat and watched the man as he stolidly strode away through the wind-stirred broom-sedge. The drooping willows, erect cane-brake, and stately mullein stalks formed a curtain of green which seemed to hang from the blue dome covered with snowy clouds. When Wilson had disappeared Hoag slowly rose to his feet, and plodded across the field to his horse. Here again, in mounting, he experienced the odd weightiness of his feet and legs, as if his mental unrest had deprived them of all physical vitality, and him of the means of restoring it.

Reaching home, he went to the barn-yard to turn his horse over to Cato. The negro was always supposed to be there at that hour, but though Hoag called loudly several times there was no response. Swearing impatiently, and for the first time shrinking from his own oaths, he took off the bridle and saddle and fed the animal. While he was in the stall he heard a sudden, cracking sound in the loft overhead, and his heart sank like a plummet into deep water. Crouching down under the wooden trough, he drew his revolver and cocked it. For a moment he held his breath. Then the cackling of a hen in the hay above explained the sound, and restoring his revolver to his pocket he went to the house.

Mrs. Tilton was at her churn in the side-gallery. Her slow, downward strokes and easy poise of body seemed wholly apart from the uncanny realm which he occupied alone. She looked up and eyed him curiously over her silver-rimmed spectacles.

“Whar's that nigger Cato?” he demanded.

“I'm afraid he's left for good,” she returned. “He's acted odd all day—refused outright to fetch water to the kitchen. I told 'im I'd report to you, but he stood with the most impudent look on his face, an' wouldn't budge an inch. Then I watched an' saw him go in his cabin. Purty soon he come out with a bundle under his arm, an' started toward town. After he was out o' sight I went to his shack an' found that he had taken all his things—every scrap he could call his own. I reckon he's off for good. Aunt Dilly won't talk much, but she thinks it is all due to the raid the mountain men made on the negroes in town the other night. I know you wasn't in that, Jim, because you was here at home.”

“No, I wasn't in it.”

“I certainly am glad of it.” The woman seemed to churn the words into her butter. “The whole thing has been run in the ground. It is near cotton-pickin' time, an' if the niggers all leave the country help, won't be had. The crops will rot in the field for the lack o' hands to pick it from the bolls.”

Hoag passed on into the house and through the hall into his own chamber. Here the air seemed oppressively warm, the plastered walls giving out heat as from the closed door of a furnace. Throwing off his coat, he sat down before a window. Such a maze and multiplicity of thoughts had never before beset his brain. The incidents of his life, small and large, marched past with the regularity of soldiers. How strange that Sid Trawley's face, ablaze with its new light, should emerge so frequently from amid the others! How odd that he should recall Paul Rundel's notion of giving himself up to the law and suffering the consequences of his supposed crime! And the effect on both men had been astounding. Sid had nothing to fear, and to Paul all good things were falling as naturally as rain from clouds. Then there was Henry, who had suddenly turned about and was making a man of himself.

At this moment a childish voice was heard singing a plantation melody. It was Jack at play on the lawn. Hoag leaned from the window and saw the boy, with hammer and nails, mending a toy wagon. Paul Rundel was entering the gate. Hoag noted the puckered lips of his manager and heard his merry whistle. He saw him pause, tenderly stroke Jack's waving curls, and smile. Who had ever seen a face more thoroughly at peace than this young man's—a smile more spontaneous?

Hoag went to the front door and stood waiting for Paul to approach. The terror within him suggested that the young man might bring fresh news concerning the things he so much dreaded.

“Be careful, Jack,” Paul was advising the boy. “If you start to coast down a steep hill in that thing you might not be able to guide it, and—zip! against a tree or stump you'd go, an' we'd have to fish you out among the splinters.” This was followed by some low-spoken directions from Paul, in which the listener on the veranda caught the words, “friction,” “nuts and bolts,” “lubricating oil,” and “electric motor.”

Then the young man turned, and seeing Hoag he came on. There was a triumphant beam in his eye, an eager flush in his cheeks, as he approached the steps.

“Glad you are at home,” he began. “I was going to look you up the first thing.”

“Did you want to—see me about—I mean—”

“Yes, I've landed that thing at last—put it through.”

“You say you've—” Hoag's thoughts were widely scattered. “You say—”

“Why, the shingle contract, you remember.” Paul stared wonderingly. “You know you were afraid the Louisville parties would not sign up at my price, but they have. They take ten car-loads of pine stock at that figure and give us two years to fill the order. But have you”—Paul was studying the man's face—“have you changed your mind? Yesterday you thought—”

“Oh, it's all right—it's splendid!” Hoag's voice was lifeless; he looked away with the fixed stare of a somnambulist; he wiped his brow with his broad hand and dried it on his trousers. “You say they take five cars?”

“They take ten,” Paul repeated, his elation oozing from him like a vapor. “It will keep our force busy summer and winter and all the extra teams we can get. I've found a place for your idle saw-mill, too—over at the foot of the ridge. I'm sure, when you have time to look over my figures, that you will see plenty of profit for you and good wages for the hands. The men are all tickled. You don't look as if you were pleased exactly, Mr. Hoag, and if anything has happened to change your mind—”

“Oh, I am pleased—I am—I am!” Hoag asseverated. “You've done well—powerful well. In fact, very well. I'll glance at your figures some time soon, but not now—not now. I'll leave it all to you,” and Hoag retreated into the house and shut himself in his room.