THE overwhelming defeat of their pets in the South, and the toppling
of their houses of paper built on Negro supremacy, brought to Congress a
sense of guilt and shame, that required action. Their own agents in
the South were now in the penitentiary or in exile for well established
felonies, and the future looked dark.
They found the scapegoat in these fool later day Ku Klux marauders.
Once more the public square at Ham-bright saw the bivouac of the regular
troops of the United States Army. The Preacher saw the glint of their
bayonets with a sense of relief.
With this army came a corps of skilled detectives, who set to work.
All that was necessary, was to arrest and threaten with summary death
a coward, and they got all the information he could give. The jail was
choked with prisoners and every day saw a squad depart for the stockade
at Independence. Sam Worth gave information that led to the immediate
arrest of Allan McLeod. He was the first man led into the jail.
The officers had a long conference with him that lasted four hours.
And then the bottom fell out. A wild stampede of young men for the
West! Somebody who held the names of every man in the order had proved a
traitor.
Every night from hundreds of humble homes might be heard the choking
sobs of a mother saying good-bye in the darkness to the last boy the
war had left her old age. When the good-bye was said, and the father,
waiting in the buggy at the gate, had called for haste, and the boy was
hurrying out with his grip-sack, there was a moan, the soft rush of a
coarse homespun dress toward the gate and her arms were around his neck
again.
“I can’t let you go, child! Lord have mercy! He’s the last!” And the low
pitiful sobs!
“Come, come, now Ma, we must get away from here before the officers are
after him!”
“Just a minute!”
A kiss, and then another long and lingering. A sigh, and then a
smothered choking cry from a mother’s broken heart and he was gone.
Thus Texas grew into the Imperial Commonwealth of the South.
*****
To save appearance McLeod was removed to Independence with the other
prisoners, and in a short time released, with a number of others against
whom insignificant charges were lodged.
When he returned to Hambright the people looked at him with suspicion.
“How is it, young man,” asked the Preacher, “that you are at home so
soon, while brave boys are serving terms in Northern prisons?”
“Had nothing against me,” he replied.
“That’s strange, when Sam Worth swore that you organised the raid to
kill Rufe Lattimore.”
“They didn’t believe him.”
“Well, I’ve an idea that you saved your hide by puking. I’m not sure
yet, but information was given that only the man in command of the whole
county could have possessed.”
“There were a half-dozen men who knew as much as I did. You mustn’t
think me capable of such a thing, Dr. Durham!” protested McLeod with
heightened colour.
“It’s a nasty suspicion. I’d rather sec a child of mine transformed into
a cur dog, and killed for stealing sheep, than fall to the level of such
a man. But only time will prove the issue.”
“I’ve made up my mind to turn over a new leaf,” said McLeod. “I’m sick
of rowdyism. I’m going to be a law-abiding, loyal citizen.”
“That’s just what I’m afraid of!” exclaimed the Preacher with a sneer as
he turned and left him.
And his fears were soon confirmed. Within a month the Independence
Observer contained a dispatch from Washington announcing the appointment
of Allan McLeod a Deputy United States Marshal for the District of
Western North Carolina, together with the information that he had
renounced his allegiance to his old disloyal associates, and had become
an enthusiastic Republican; and that henceforth he would labour with
might and main to establish peace and further the industrial progress of
the South.
“I knew it. The dirty whelp!” cried the Preacher, as he showed the paper
to his wife.
“Now don’t be too hard on the boy, Doctor Durham,” urged his wife. “He
may be sincere in his change of politics. You never did like him.”
“Sincere! yes, as the devil is always sincere. He’s dead in earnest now.
He’s found his level, and his success is sure. Mark my words the boy’s
a villain from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He has
bartered his soul to save his skin, and the skin is all that’s left.”
“I’m sorry to think it. I couldn’t help liking him.”
“And that’s the funniest freak I ever knew your fancy to take, my
dear,--I never could understand it.”
When McLeod had established his office in Hambright, he made special
efforts to allay the suspicions against his name. His indignant denials
of the report of his treachery convinced many that he had been wronged.
Two men alone, maintained toward him an attitude of contempt, Major
Dameron and the Preacher.
He called on Mrs. Durham, and with his smooth tongue convinced her
that he had been foully slandered. She urged him to win the Doctor.
Accordingly he called to talk the question over with the Preacher and
ask him for a fair chance to build his character untarnished in the
community.
The Preacher heard him through patiently, but in silence. Allan was
perspiring before he reached the end of his plausible explanation. It
was a tougher task than he thought, this deliberate lying, under the
gaze of those glowing black eyes that looked out from their shaggy brows
and pierced through his inmost soul.
“You’ve got an oily tongue. It will carry you a long way in this world.
I can’t help admiring the skill with which you are fast learning to use
it. You’ve fooled Mrs. Durham with it, but you can’t fool me,” said the
Preacher.
“Doctor, I solemnly swear to you I am not guilty.”
“It’s no use to add perjury to plain lying. I know you did it. I know
it as well as if I were present in that jail and heard you basely betray
the men, name by name, whom you had lured to their ruin.”
“Doctor, I swear you are mistaken!”
“Bah! Don’t talk about it. You nauseate me!” The Preacher sprang to
his feet, paced across the floor, sat down on the edge of his table and
glared at McLeod for a moment. And then with his voice low and quivering
with a storm of emotion he said, “The curse of God upon you--the God of
your fathers! Your fathers in far-off Scotland’s hills, who would have
suffered their tongues torn from their heads and their skin stripped
inch by inch from their flesh sooner than betray one of their clan in
distress. You have betrayed a thousand of your own men, and you, their
sworn chieftain! Hell was made to consume such leper trash!” McLeod was
dazed at first by this outburst. At length he sprang to his feet livid
with rage.
“I’ll not forget this, sir!” he hissed.
“Don’t forget it!” cried the Preacher trembling with passion as he
opened the door. “Go on and live your lie.”