"I'll have had enough when I put you where you can't entice my girl

again," answered Jacob as he rose slowly to his feet. As he spoke Billy

went and stood beside the parson and Nickols stepped behind them into

the shadow in which Martha crouched.

"You know that is not true, Jacob. I helped Martha to go away to a place

of safety to earn her living and keep her honesty. Isn't that so,

Martha?" the rich voice softly asked the woman crouching in the dark.

"I told him that but he wouldn't believe me and the others don't," she

answered with a sob that was almost a shudder of fear.

"What did she come back fer then?" demanded Jacob. "Answer me that. And

didn't she go straight to your preaching and praying joint like all the

other women, fine and sluts, do?" The liquor was still burning in

Jacob's head but at those words he got a response from the impact of

Billy's fist that again laid him low.

"Oh, I dasn't say nothing. I dasn't," moaned Martha, as she clutched at

my skirts just as Nell and Hampton began to arrive on the scene of

action, followed by Harriet and Mark and the others. They were all

panting and wild with anxiety. They had taken the wrong turning at the

end of the square and had gone around the block, thus giving the little

tragedy time to enact itself before a mercifully small audience.

"Go away quickly, Martha, in the shadow," I bent and whispered to the

trembling woman, and I didn't know where the sympathy in my voice came

from as I stood between her and the rest while she slipped behind an old

horse block before the court house gate and off in the darkness towards

the Settlement before they had noticed her presence.

"Anybody hurt? What's the matter?" gasped Mark as he seized hold of the

Reverend Mr. Goodloe's arm.

"Nothing serious," answered the parson in a voice that calmed the others

like oil on choppy water. "Jacob Ensley is out on a drunk and Billy had

to knock him down to quiet him. All of you go back to dinner quickly,

for I don't see why Sergeant Rogers should get Jacob this time. Billy

will help me get him home and I'll remonstrate with him when he is

sober. I'd rather do it at the Last Chance than at the jail. Jacob is a

leading citizen and I don't want a jail smirch on him. I intend to use

him later. Now all of you go. Go!" His voice was as gently positive as

if he had been speaking to a lot of children and nobody seemed even to

think of rebelling but we all began to fade away into the starlight as

rapidly as we had assembled and more quietly.




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