CHAPTER I--STELLA’S RESOLUTION

THE TRAITOR

A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire

By Thomas Dixon, Jr.

Illustrated By C. D. Williams

New York: Doubleday, Page & Company

1907

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DEDICATED TO THE MEN OF THE SOUTH WHO SUFFERED EXILE. IMPRISONMENT AND

DEATH FOR THE DARING SERVICE THEY RENDERED OUR COUNTRY AS CITIZENS OF

THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE

This volume closes, as originally planned,

“THE TRILOGY OF RECONSTRUCTION”

“The Leopard’s Spots”

“The Clansman”

“The Traitor”

“The Clansman” ended with the political triumph of the Klu Klux Klan,

or Invisible Empire. The story of “The Traitor” opens with the order of

dissolution by General Forest and is set in the atmosphere of the fierce

neighborhood feuds which marked the Klan’s downfall in the Piedmont

region of the South.

Thomas Dixon, Jr.

New York, 1907.

LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY

Scene: The Foothills of North Carolina.

Time: 1870 to 1872.

John Graham.............Ex-chief of the Klan

Major Graham............His Father

Billy...................His Brother

Alfred..................The Family Butler

Mrs. Wilson.............Their Landlady

Susie...................Her Daughter

Dan Wiley...............A Mountaineer

Steve Hoyle.............Chief of the New Klan

Judge Butler............Of the U. S. Circuit Court

Stella..................His Daughter

Aunt Julie Ann..........His Cook

Maggie..................Stella’s Maid

Suggs...................A Detective

Ackerman................Of the U. S. Secret Service

Alexander Larkin........A Carpetbagger

Isaac A. Postle.........A Sanctified Man

The Attorney General of the United States

Hon. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland

Hon. Henry Stanbery.....Of Ohio

U. S. Grant.............The President

THE TRAITOR

BOOK I-THE CRIME

CHAPTER I--THE THREAT

WHAS the mather with the latch!

He shook it gently.

“No mistake about it--grown solid to the fence. I’ll have to climb

over.”

He touched the points of the sharp pickets, suddenly straightened

himself with dignity and growled:

“I won’t climb over my own fence, and I won’t scratch under. I’ll walk

straight through.”

A vicious lurch against the gate smashed the latch and he fell heavily

inside.

He had scarcely touched the ground when a fair girl of eighteen, dressed

in spotless white, reached the gate, running breathlessly, darted

inside, seized his arm and helped him to his feet.

“Mr. John, you must come home with me,” she said eagerly.

“Grot to see old Butler, Miss Susie.”

“You’re in no condition to see Judge Butler.” She spoke with tenderness

and yet with authority.

“And why not?” he argued good-naturedly. “Ain’t I dressed in my best bib

and tucker?”

He brushed the dirt from his seedy frock coat and buttoned it carefully.

“You’ve been drinking,” pleaded the girl.

“Yet I’m not drunk!” he declared triumphantly.

“Then you’re giving a good imitation,” she said with an audible smile.

“Miss Susie, I deny the allegation.”

He bowed with impressive dignity.

Susie drew him firmly toward the street.

“You mustn’t go in--I ran all the way to stop you in time--you’ll

quarrel with the Judge.”

“That’s what I came for.”

“Well, you musn’t do it. Mama says the Judge has the power to ruin you.”

John’s eyes shot a look of red hate toward the house and his strong jaws

snapped.

“He has done it already, child!” he growled; paused, and changed his

tone to a quizzical drawl. “The fact is, Miss Susie, I’ve merely imbibed

a little eloquence on purpose to-night to tell this distinguished

ornament of the United States Judiciary, without reservation and with

due emphasis, just how many kinds of a scoundrel he really is.”

“Don’t do it.”

“It’s my patriotic duty.”

“But you’ll fight.”

“Far from it, Miss Susie. I may thrash the Judge incidentally during our

talk, but there will be no fight.”

“Please don’t go in, Mr. John!” she pleaded softly.

“I must, child,” he answered, smilingly but firmly. “Old Butler to-day

used his arbitrary power to disbar me from the practice of law. If that

order stands, I’m a pauper. I already owe your mother for two months’

board.”

“We don’t want the money,” eagerly broke in the girl.

“Two months’ board,” he went on, ignoring her interruption, “for my dear

old crazy Dad, helpless as a babe with his faithful servant Alfred who

must wait on him--two months’ board for my bouncing brother Billy, an

eighteen-year-old cub who never missed a meal--two months’ board for

my war-tried appetite that was never known to fail. No, Miss Susie, we

can’t impose on the good nature of the widow Wilson and her beautiful

daughter who does the work of a slave without wages and without a

murmur.”

Susie’s eyes suddenly fell.

“No, I’ve given Alfred orders to pack. We must move to-morrow.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” cried the girl. “You can pay us when

you are able. Your father saved us from want during the war. We owe

him a debt that can’t be paid. He is no trouble, and Alfred works the

garden. Mother loves Billy as if he were my brother. And we are honoured

in having you in our home.”

The tender gray eyes were lowered again.

John looked at her curiously, bowed and kissed her hand.

“Thanks, Miss Susie! I appreciate, more than I can tell, your coming

alone after me here to-night--a very rash and daring thing for a girl to

do in these troublesome times. Such things make a fellow ashamed that

he ever took a drink, make him feel that life is always worth the

fight--and I’m going to make it to-night--and I’m going to win!”

“Then don’t give old Butler the chance to ruin you,” pleaded the gentle

voice.

“I won’t, my little girl, I won’t--don’t worry! I’ll play my trump

card--I’ve got it here.”

He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a letter which he crushed

nervously in his slender but powerful hand, drawing his tall figure

suddenly erect.

The girl saw that her pleadings were in vain, and said helplessly:

“You won’t come back with me?”

“No, Miss Susie, I’ve serious work just now with the present lord of

this manor; my future hangs on the issue. I’ll win--and I’ll come home

later in the evening without a scratch.”

Again the slender white hand rested on his arm. “Promise me to wait

an hour until you are cooler and your head is clear before you see

him--will you?”

“Maybe,” he said evasively.

“If you do appreciate my coming,” she urged, “at least show it by this;

promise for my sake, won’t you?”

He hesitated a moment and answered with courtesy:

“Yes, I promise for your sake, Susie, my little mascot and fellow

conspirator of The Invisible Empire--good-bye!” He seized her hand, and

held it a moment. “My! my! but you look one of us to-night, with that

sylph figure robed in white standing there ghost-like in the moonlit

shadows!”

“I wish I could share your dangers. I’d go on a raid with you if you’d

let me,” she cried eagerly.

“No doubt,” he laughed.

“I’ll sit up until you come,” she whispered as she turned and left him.

John Graham leaned against the picket fence and watched intently the

white figure until Susie Wilson disappeared. The talk with her had more

than half sobered him.

“And now for business,” he muttered, turning through the open gate

toward the house. He stopped suddenly with amazement.

“Well, what the Devil! every window from cellar to attic ablaze with

light. And the old scoundrel has always kept it dark as the grave.”

He seated himself on a rustic bench in the shadows to await the lapse of

the hour he had promised Susie, and pondered more carefully the plan of

personal vengeance against Butler which was now rapidly shaping itself

in his mind. That he had the power, as chief of the dreaded Ku Klux

Klan, to execute it was not to be doubted. The Invisible Empire obeyed

his word without a question.

Tender memories of his childhood began to flood his soul. Beneath these

trees he had spent the happiest days of life--the charmed life of the

old régime. He could see now the stately form of his mother moving among

its boxwood walks directing the work of her slaves.

He had not been there before since the day her body was carried from

the hall five years ago and laid to rest in the family vault in the far

corner of the lawn. Ah, that awful day! Could he ever forget it? The day

old Butler brought his deputy marshals and evicted his father and mother

from the home they loved as life itself!

The Graham house had always been a show place in the town of

Independence. Built in 1840, by John’s grandfather, Robert Graham, the

eccentric son of Colonel John Graham of Revolutionary fame, it was a

curious mixture of Colonial and French architecture. The French touches

were tributes to the Huguenot ancestry of his grandmother.

The building crowned the summit of a hill and was surrounded by

twenty-five acres of trees of native growth beneath which wound

labyrinths of walks hedged by boxwood. Its shape was a huge, red brick

rectangle, three and a half stories in height, with mansard roof broken

by quaint projecting French windows. On three sides porches had been

added, their roof supported by small white Colonial columns. The front

door, of pure Colonial pattern, opened directly into a great hall of

baronial dimensions, at the back of which a circular stairway wound

along the curved wall.

The attic story was lighted by the windows of an observatory. From the

hall one could thus look up through the galleries of three floors and

the slightest whisper from above was echoed with startling distinctness.

The strange noises which the Negro servants had heard floating down

from these upper spaces had been translated into ghost stories which

had grown in volume and picturesque distinction with each succeeding

generation. The house had always been “haunted.”

The family vault in the remotest corner of the lawn was built of solid

masonry sunk deep into the hillside. Its iron doors, which were never

locked, opened through a mass of tangled ivy and honeysuckle climbing

in all directions over the cedars and holly which completely hid its

existence.

Popular tradition said that Robert Graham had loved his frail Huguenot

bride with passionate idolatry, and anticipating her early death, had

constructed this vault, a very unusual thing in this section of the

South. It was whispered, too, that he had dug a secret passage-way from

the house to this tomb, that he might spend his evenings near her body

without the prying eyes of the world to watch his anguish. Whether this

secret way was a myth or reality only the Grahams knew. Not one of the

family had ever been known to speak of the rumour, either to affirm or

deny it.

A year after his wife’s death Robert Graham was found insane, wandering

among the trees at the entrance of the vault. This branch of the

family had always been noted for it’s men of genius and it’s touch of

hereditary insanity.

On the day of his mother’s burial John Graham had found his own father

sitting in the door of this tomb hopelessly insane.

But he had not accepted the theory of hereditary insanity in the case of

his father. The Major was a man of quiet courteous manners, deliberate

in his habits, a trained soldier, a distinguished veteran of the Mexican

war, conciliatory in temper, and a diplomat by instinct. He had never

had a quarrel with a neighbour or a personal feud in his life.

The longer John Graham brooded over this tragedy to-night, the fiercer

grew his hatred of Butler. Something had happened in the hall the day

of his mother’s death which had remained a mystery. Aunt Julie Ann, who

stayed with the new master of the old house as his cook, had told John

that she had heard high words between Butler and the Major, and when she

was called, found her mistress dead on the floor and his father lying

moaning beside her.

John had always held the theory that Butler had used rough or insulting

language to his mother; his father had resented it, and the Judge,

taking advantage of his weakness from a long illness of typhoid fever,

had struck the Major a cowardly blow. The shock had killed his mother,

and rendered his father insane. Experts had examined the Major’s head,

however, and failed to discover any pressure of the skull on the brain.

Yet John held this theory as firmly as if he had been present and

witnessed the tragedy.

He rose from his seat, walked to the front entrance of the house and

looked at his watch by the bright light which streamed through the

leaded glass beside the door. He had yet ten minutes.

He retraced in part his steps, followed the narrow path to the foot of

the hill and entered the vault. Feeling his way along the sides to the

arched niche in the rear, he pressed his shoulder heavily against the

right side of the smooth stone wall forming the back of the niche,

and felt it instantly give. The rush of damp air told him that the old

underground way was open.

He smiled with satisfaction. He knew that this passage led through a

blind wall in the basement of the house and up into the great hall by a

panel in the oak wainscoting under the stairs.

“It’s easy! My men could seize him without a struggle!” he said grimly,

slowly allowing the door to settle back of its own weight into place

again.

He stood for a moment in the darkness of the vault, clinched his fist at

last and exclaimed:

“I’ll do it!--but I prefer the front door. I’ll try that first.”

A few minutes later he had reached the house, knocked loudly and stood

waiting an answer.

Aunt Julie Ann’s black face smiled him a hearty welcome.

“Come right in, Marse John, honey, an’ make yo’ sef at home. I sho is

glad ter see ye!”

John walked deliberately across the hall and sat down on the old

mahogany davenport under the stairs behind which he knew the secret door

opened. He reached back carelessly, played with the spring and felt it

yield.

Aunt Julie Ann’s huge form waddled after him. “Fore I pass de time er

day I mus’ tell ye Marse John, what de Jedge say. He give ‘structions

ter all de folks dat ef any Graham put his foot ter dat do’ ter tell ‘im

he don’t low you inside dis yard! I tell ye, so’s I kin tell him I tell

ye--Cose, I can’t help it dat you brush right pass me an’ come in, can

I, honey?”

“Of course not, Aunt Julie Ann.”

Her big figure shook with suppressed laughter. “De very idee er me

keepin’ Mammy’s baby outen dis house when I carry him across dis hall in

my arms de day he wuz born! An how’s all de folks, Marse John?”

“About as usual, thank you, Aunt Julie Ann. How are you?”

“Poorly, thank God, poorly.”

“Why, what’s the matter?”

She glanced furtively up into the dim moonlit gallery of the observatory

and whispered:

“Dey wuz terrible times here las’ night!”

“What happened?”

“Ghosts!”

“What, again?” John laughed.

“Nasah, dem wuz new ones! We got de lights all burnin’ ter-night. De

Jedge, he wuz scared outen ten years growth. He been in bed all day, des

now git up ter supper. Wuz Marse William well las’ night?”

“As well as usual, yes; Alfred put him to bed early.”

“Well, sho’s you born, his livin’ ghost wuz here! He wuz clothed an’ in

his right min’ too! I hear sumfin walkin’ up in de attic ’bout leben

erclock, an’ I creep out in de hall an’ look up, an’ bress de Lawd, dar

stood you Pa leanin’ ober de railin’ lookin’ right at me! Well, sah, I

wuz scared dat bad I couldn’t holler. I look ergin an’ dar stood yo Ma,

my dead Missy, right side er him.”

“Ah, Aunt Julie Ann, you were walking in your sleep.”

“Nasah! I’se jist as waked as I is now. I try my bes’ ergin ter holler,

but I clean los’ my breath and couldn’t. So I crawl to the Jedge’s room,

an’ tell him what I see. He wuz scared most ter death, but he follow me

out in de hall an’ look up. He seed ‘em too an’ drop down side er me er

foamin’ at de mouf. He’s powerful scary anyhow, de Jedge is--des like us

niggers. I got him ter bed and poured er big drink er licker down ‘im,

an’ when he come to, he make me promise nebber ter tell nobody, an’ I

promise. Cose, hit’s des like I’se talkin’ ter myself, honey, when I

tell you.”

“And this morning he gave orders to admit no one of the tribe of Graham

inside the yard again?”

“Yassah!”

“Well, tell his Honour that I am here and wish to see him at once.”

“Yassah, I spec he won’t come down--but I tell ‘im, sah.”

She waddled up the stairs to the Judge’s room. John heard the quarrel

between them. Aunt Julie Ann’s voice loud, shrill, defiant, insolent,

above the Judge’s. She served him for his money and her love for the old

house, but secretly she despised him as she did all poor white trash and

in such moments made no effort to hide her feelings.

“Bully for Aunt Julie Ann!” John chuckled.

When she returned, he slipped the last piece of money he possessed into

her hand and smiled.

“Keep it for good luck,” he said.

“Yassah! De Jedge say he be down as soon as he dresses--he all dress now

but he des want ter keep you waitin’.”

“I understand,” said John with a laugh. “Are you sure, Aunt Julie Ann,

that the ghost of the Major you saw last night wasn’t the real man

himself?”

“Cose I’se sho’. Hit wuz his speret!”

“Alfred says he’s walking in his sleep of late; at least he found mud on

his shoes the other morning when he got up.”

“De Lawd, Marse John, hit wuz his speret, des lak I tell ye. He didn’t

look crazy no mo’n you is. He look des lak he look in de ole days when

we wuz all rich an’ proud and happy. He wuz laughin’ an’ talkin’ low

like to my Missy an’ she wuz laughin’ an talkin’ back at ‘im. I seed ‘em

bof wid my own eyes des ez plain ez I see you now, chile.”

“You thought you did, anyway.”

“Cose I did, honey. De doors is all locked an’ bolted wid new iron

bolts--nuttin but sperets kin get in dis house atter dark--de Jedge he

sees ‘em too--des ez plain ez I did.”

“And this coward is set to rule a downtrodden people,” John muttered

fiercely under his breath. “Yes it’s easy, he’ll do what I tell

him to-night, or--I’ll--use--the--power I wield--to--execute--the

judgment--of--a--just--God.”

“What you say, honey?” Aunt Julie Ann asked.

“Nothing.”

“Dar’s de Jedge commin’ now,” she whispered, hastily leaving.

John kept his seat in sullen silence until the shuffling footsteps of

his enemy had descended the stairs and crossed half the space of the

hall.

The younger man rose and gazed at him a moment, his eyes flashing with

hatred he could no longer mask.

The Judge halted, moved his feet nervously and fumbled at the big gold

watch-chain he wore across his ponderous waist. His shifting bead eyes

sought the floor, and then he suddenly lifted his drooping head like

a turtle, approached John in a fawning, creeping, half-walk,

half-shuffle, and extended his hand.

“I bid you welcome, young man, to the old home of your ancestors. In

fact, I’m delighted to see you. I heard to-day that you would probably

call this evening, and had the servants illuminate every room in your

honour.”

“Indeed!” John sneered.

“Yes, I’ve wished for some time that I might have such an opportunity to

talk things over with you.”

John had turned from the proffered hand and seated himself with

deliberate insolence.

“Thanks for the illuminations in honour of my family!”

The sneer with which he spoke was not lost on the Judge. His patronising

judicial air, so newly acquired, wavered before the cold threat of the

younger man’s manner. Yet he recovered himself sufficiently to say:

“My boy, I like your high spirit, but I _must_ give you a little

fatherly advice.”

“Seeing that my own father at present cannot do so.”

The Judge ignored the interruption and seated himself with an attempt at

dignity.

“Mr. Graham, you must recognise the authority of the United States

Government.”

“Which means you?”

“I was compelled to make an example of disloyalty.”

“You disbarred me from personal malice.”

“For your treasonable utterances.”

“I have the right to criticise your degradation of the judiciary in

using it to further your political ambitions.”

“I disbarred you for treason and contempt of court.”

John rose and stood glaring at the judge whose shifting eyes avoided

him.

“Well, you’re on solid ground there, your Honour! Were I the master

of every language of earth, past master of all the dead tongues of the

ages, a genius in the use of every epithet the rage of man ever spoke,

still words would have no power to express my contempt for you!”

The Judge shuffled his big feet as if to rise.

“Sit still!” John growled. “I’ve come here to-night to demand of you two

things.”

“You’re in no position to demand anything of me!” spluttered Butler,

running his hand nervously through his heavy black hair.

“Two things,” John went on evenly: “First revoke your order and restore

me to my law practice to-morrow morning.”

“Not until you apologise for your criticism.”

“That’s what I’m doing now. I profoundly regret the incident. I should

have kicked you across the street--criticism was an error of judgment.”

Butler shambled to his feet, trembling with rage, pulled nervously at

his beard again and gasped:

“How dare you insult me in my house!”

“It’s my house!” flashed the angry answer.

“Your house?” the Judge stammered, again tugging at his beard.

“Yes, sit down.”

The astonished jurist dropped into his chair, his shifting basilisk eyes

dancing with a new excitement.

“Your house, your house--why, what--what!”

“Yes and you’re going to vacate it within two weeks.”

“What do you mean, sir?” demanded the Judge, plucking up his courage for

a moment.

“I mean that the distinguished jurist, Hugh Butler, who had the honour

of presiding over the trial of Jefferson Davis, and now aspires to the

leadership of his party in the South, was living in a stolen house when

he delivered his famous charge concerning traitors to the grand jury,

that morning in Richmond. It is with peculiar personal pleasure that I

now brand you to your face--coward, liar, perjurer, thief!”

John paused a moment to watch the effects of his words on his enemy. The

cold sweat began to appear in the bald spot above the Judge’s forehead,

and his answer came with gasping feeble emphasis:

“I bought this house and paid for it!”

“Exactly!” sneered the younger man. “But I never knew until I got this

letter”--he drew the letter from his pocket--“just how you came to buy a

house which cost $50,000 for so trifling a sum of money.”

“Who wrote that letter?” interrupted the Judge eagerly.

“Evidently a friend of yours, once high in your councils, who has grown

of late to love you as passionately as I do. And I think he could put a

knife into your ribs with as much pleasure.”

The Judge winced and glanced nervously into the galleries.

“Don’t worry, your Honour. If you take the medicine I prescribe,

amputation will not be necessary. Let me read the letter. It’s brief but

to the point:”

_To John Graham, Esq._

_Dear Sir: The secret of Butler’s possession of your estate is simple.

Under his authority as United States Judge, he ordered its confiscation,

forced his wife to buy it for $2,800, at a fake sale, which had not been

advertised, and later had it reconveyed to him. His wife refused to live

in the house, sent her daughter to school in Washington, and died two

years later from the conscious dishonour she had been obliged at least

in secret to share. A suit brought before the United States Supreme

Court will restore your property, hurl a scoundrel from the bench, and

cover him with everlasting infamy._

_A Former Pal of His Honour._

“An anonymous slanderer!” snorted the judge.

“Yet he expresses himself with vigour and accuracy, and his words are

backed by circumstantial evidence.”

Butler sprang to his feet livid with rage crying:

“John Graham, you’re drunk!”

“Just drunk enough to talk entertainingly to you, Judge.”

“Will you leave my house? or must I call an officer to eject you, sir?”

he thundered.

“A process of law is slow and expensive, Judge,” said John with a drawl.

“I haven’t the money at present to waste on a suit, May I ask when you

will vacate this estate?”

“When ordered to do so by the last court of appeal, sir!”

John looked the Judge squarely in the eye and slowly said:

“You are before the last court of appeal now, and it’s judgment day.”

“I understand your threat, sir, but I want to tell you that your Ku Klux

Klan has had its day. The President is aroused--Congress has acted.

I’ll order a regiment of troops to this town tomorrow! Dare to lift the

weight of your little finger against my authority and I’ll send your

crazy old father to the county poorhouse and you to the gallows--to the

gallows! I warn you!” John took a step closer to his enemy, towering

over his slouchy figure menacingly, and said, “When will you vacate this

house?”

Butler grasped the back of his chair, trembling with fury.

“The possession of this estate is the fulfillment of one of the proudest

ambitions of my life.”

“When will you get out?”

“And my daughter has just returned to-day from Washington, a beautiful

accomplished woman, to preside over it.”

“When--will--you--get--out?”

“When ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States--or when I’m

carried out--feet--foremost--through--that--door!”

The Judge choked with anger.

“Then, until we meet again!”

John bowed with mock courtesy, walked across the hall to the alcove and

took his hat from the rack where Aunt Julie Ann had hung it, just as

Stella Butler sprang through the rear entrance with a joyous shout,

reached at a bound the Judge’s side and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh! Papa, what a glorious night! Steve and I had such a ride!” The

Judge placed his hand on her lips and whispered:

“My dear, there’s someone here.”

Stella glanced over her shoulder and saw John fumbling his hat in

embarrassment.

“Why it’s the famous Mr. John Graham--introduce me, quick!”

“Not to-night, dear; I do not wish you to know him.”

Stella released herself and, with a ripple of girlish laughter, walked

boldly over to John, her face wreathed in friendly smiles.

“Mr. Graham, permit me to introduce myself, Stella Butler. My father has

just forbidden it. I care nothing for your old politics--shall we not be

friends?”

She extended a dainty little hand and John took it stammering

incoherently. Never had he touched a hand so warm, and tender and so

full of vital magnetism. It thrilled him with strange confusion.

Never had he seen a vision of such bewildering loveliness. An exquisite

oval face with lines like a delicate cameo, cheeks of ripe-peach red,

a crown of unruly raven-black hair, and big brown eyes shaded by heavy

lashes. Her dress showed the perfection of good taste and careful

study--a yellow satin, trimmed in old lace that fitted her rounded

little figure without a wrinkle, dainty feet in snow-white stockings and

bow-tipped slippers that peeped in and out mischievously as she walked,

and with it all a magnetic personality which riveted and held the

attention.

He stared at her a moment dumb with wonder. Could it be possible that a

girl of such extraordinary beauty, of such remarkable character, of such

appealing manners could have been born of such a father!

“As the new mistress of your old home let me bid you a hearty welcome,

Mr. Graham,” she said softly. “You must come often and tell me all its

legends and ghost stories?”

The Judge shuffled uneasily and cleared his throat with nervous anger.

“Now keep still, Papa! I’m going to make this old house ring with joy

and laughter. I won’t have any of your political quarrels. I’m going to

be friends with everybody, as my mother was--they say she was a famous

belle in her day, Mr. Graham?”

“So I have often heard,” John answered with increasing confusion, as he

retreated toward the door.

“You will come again?”

“I hope to soon,” he gravely answered as he bowed himself out the door.

CHAPTER II--MR. HOYLE RECEIVES A SHOCK

STEVE HOYLE had called early at the Judge’s to see Stella the morning

after John’s encounter in the hall. As he paced restlessly back and

forth waiting the return of Stella’s maid, he was evidently in an ugly

humour.

When he heard the story at the hotel late the night before, that his

hated rival in politics and society had dared to venture into Judge

Butler’s home, he could not believe it. And the idea that Stella should

receive him had cut his vanity to the quick.

The richest young man in the county, he aspired to be the most popular,

and he had long enjoyed the distinction in the estimation of his friends

of being the handsomest man in his section of the state. In his own

estimation there had never been any question about this. And beyond

a doubt he was a magnificent animal. Six feet tall, a superb figure,

somewhat coarse and heavy in the neck, with smooth, regular features.

He was slightly given to fat, but his complexion was red and clean as a

boy’s, and he might well be pardoned his vanity when one remembered his

money.

His father, the elder Hoyle, who had avoided service in the war by

hiring a substitute, had emerged from the tragedy far wealthier than

when he entered it. Some people hinted that if the Treasury Agents,

who had stolen the cotton of the country under the absurd and infamous

Confiscation Act of Congress, would speak, they might explain this

fortune. They had never spoken. The old fox had been too clever and his

tracks were all covered.

Steve had recently met Stella at one of her school receptions in

Washington while on business for his father, yielded instantly to her

spell, and they were engaged. He felt that he had condescended to honour

the Judge by marrying into his family.

Butler never had been a slave owner, and in spite of his fawning

ambitions as a turncoat politician and social aspirant, he was still

poor--so poor in fact that he could scarcely keep up appearances in

the Graham mansion. Steve planned to live there after his marriage in

a style befitting his wealth and social position. He noted the faded

covering on the old mahogany furniture and determined to make it shine

with new plush on his advent as master.

He walked over to the hall mirror and adjusted his tie. He was getting

nervous. Stella was keeping him waiting longer than usual. She was doing

this to tease him, but he would have his revenge when they were married.

Steve had quickly come to a perfect understanding with the Judge.

The Piedmont Congressional District, which included several mountain

counties, was overwhelmingly Democratic. The Judge, as the Republican

leader, had promised Steve to put up no candidate, but to support him as

an independent if the approaching Democratic Convention nominated John

Graham for Congress.

Steve as a man of capital proclaimed that the money interests of the

North should be cultivated and that a deal with the enemy was always

better than a fight.

Sure of his success, he had already promised Stella with boastful

certainty a brilliant social season in Washington as his wife. In spite

of his immense vanity, he knew that this promise had gone far to win her

favour. She too was vain of her beauty, and her social ambitions were

boundless. He had received her mild professions of love with a grain of

salt. She was yet too young and beautiful to take life seriously. His

fortune and his good looks had been the magnets that drew her. But he

was content. He would make her love him in due time. He was sure of it.

Yet on two occasions he had observed that she had shown a disposition

to flirt skilfully and daringly with every handsome fellow who came her

way--and it had distressed him not a little.

He was angry and uneasy this morning, and made up his mind to assert

his rights with dignity--and yet with a firmness that would leave no

question as to who was going to be master in his house. He decided to

nip Stella’s acquaintance with John Graham in the bud on the spot. That

he had called for any other reason than to see her, never occurred to

him.

When Maggie, Stella’s little coal black maid, at length reappeared, she

was grinning with more than usual cunning.

“Miss Stella say she be down in a minute,” she said with a giggle.

“You’ve been gone a half hour,” Steve answered frowning.

“I spec I is,” observed Maggie, continuing to giggle and glance

furtively at Steve.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nuttin.”

He held up a quarter and beckoned. She hastened to his side.

“I want us to be good friends.”

She took the money, grinned again and said: “Yassah!”

“Now, what have you been giggling about?”

“Mr. John Graham wuz here last night!”

“So I hear. Did he see Miss Stella?”

“Deed he did! Dat’s what dey all come fur. She so purty dey can’t hep

it.”

“How long did he stay?”

“Till atter midnight!”

“Indeed!”

“Yassah!” Maggie went on, walling her eyes with tragic earnestness. “She

play de pianer fur ’im long time in de parlour, an’ he sing fur her an’

den she sing fur ’im.”

Steve cleared his throat angrily.

“Yassah! an’ atter dey git froo singin’ she take him out fur er stroll

on de lawn an’ dey go way down in de fur corner an’ set in one er dem

rustics fur ’bout er hour. Den dey come in an’ bof un ’em set in de

moonlight in de hammock right close side an’ side, and he talk low an’

sof, an’ she laugh, an’ laugh, an’ hit ’im wid er fan--jesso! Yassah. Sh!

She comin’ now!”

The girl darted out of sight as Stella’s dress rustled in the hall

above.

Steve pulled himself together with an effort, and met her at the foot of

the stairs.

She made an entrancing picture as she slowly descended the steps,

serenely conscious of her beauty and its power over the man below whose

eyes were now devouring her. The flowing train of her cream-coloured

morning gown made her look a half foot taller than she was. She had

always fretted at her diminutive stature, and wore her dresses the

extreme length to give her added height.

With a gracious smile she welcomed Steve and he attempted to kiss her.

She repulsed him firmly and allowed him to kiss her hand.

“Stella dear,” he began petulantly, with an accent of offended dignity,

“you must quit this foolishness! We have been engaged three weeks and

I’ve never touched your lips.”

She laughed and tossed her pretty head.

“And we’re engaged!”

“Not yet married,” she observed, lifting her arched brows.

“I have honoured you with my fortune and my life.”

“Thanks,” she interrupted smiling.

Steve flushed and went on rapidly.

“Really, Stella, the time has come for a serious talk between us.”

She seated herself at the piano and ran her fingers lightly over the

keys. Steve followed, a frown clouding his smooth handsome forehead.

“Will you hear me?” he asked.

“Certainly!” she answered, turning on him her big brown eyes. In their

depths he might have seen a sudden dangerous light, had he been less

absorbed in himself. As it was he only saw a smile lurking about the

corners of her lips which irritated him the more.

“I understand that John Graham called on you last night?”

“Indeed, I hadn’t heard it,” she answered lightly.

“And stayed until after midnight.”

Stella sprang to her feet, looked steadily at Steve, frowned, walked to

the door and called:

“Maggie!”

The black face appeared instantly.

“Yassum!” she answered, with eager innocence.

“Have you said anything about Mr. Graham’s visit last night?”

Maggie walled her eyes in amazement at such an outrageous suspicion.

“No, M’am! I aint open my mouf--has I Mister Steve?”

“Certainly not,” Steve answered curtly.

“I thought I heard your voice in the hall,” Stella continued, looking

sternly at Maggie.

“Nobum! Twan’t me. I nebber stop er second. I pass right straight on

froo de hall--nebber even look t’ward Mr. Steve.”

“You can go,” was the stern command. “Yassum!” Maggie half whispered,

backing out the door, her eyes travelling quickly from Steve to her

mistress.

“As my affianced bride,” he went on firmly, “I cannot afford to have you

receive the man who is my bitterest enemy.”

With a smile, Stella quickly but quietly removed the ring from her

hand and gave it to Steve, who stood for a moment paralysed with

astonishment. “Stella!” he gasped.

“The burden of your affianced bride is too heavy for my young

shoulders.”

“Forgive me dear!” he pleaded.

“I prefer to receive whom I please, when and where I please, without

consulting you. When I need a master to order my daily conduct, I’ll let

you know.

“But, Stella, dear!”

“Miss Butler--if you please!”

“I--I only meant to tell you that I love you desperately, that I’m

jealous and ask you not to torture me--you cannot mean this, dear?”

“How dare you address me in that manner again!” she cried, flaming with

anger, the tense little figure drawn to its full height.

Steve attempted to take her hand, but the fierce light in her eyes

stopped him without a word.

“Leave this house instantly!” she said, with quiet emphasis.

With deep muttered curses in his soul against John Graham, Steve turned

and left.

As he passed through the doorway, a black face peeped from the alcove

and giggled.

CHAPTER III--A BLOW IS STRUCK

TRUE to his word Butler called for a regiment of United States troops.

On the second day after his interview with the Judge, John Graham

watched from his office window the blue coats march through the streets

of Independence to their camp.

He turned to his chair beside a quaint old mahogany desk and wrote an

official order to each of the eight district chiefs of the Invisible

Empire who were under his command in the state.

When he had finished his task he sat for an hour in silence staring out

of his window and seeing nothing save the big brown eyes of a beautiful

girl--eyes of extraordinary size and brilliance that seemed to be

searching the depths of his soul. It was a new and startling experience

in his life. He had made love harmlessly after the gallant fashion of

his race to many girls; yet none of them had found the man within.

He was angry with himself now for his inability to shake off the

impression Stella Butler had made. He hated her very name. The idea of

his ever seeking the hand of a Butler in marriage made him shiver. To

even meet her socially with such a father was unthinkable. And yet he

kept thinking.

Two things especially about her haunted him with persistence and had

thrown a spell over his imagination--the strange appealing tenderness

of her eyes and the marvellous low notes of her voice, a voice at once

musical, and warm with slumbering passion. Her voice seemed the echo of

ravishing music he had heard somewhere, or dreamed or caught in another

world he fancied sometimes his soul had inhabited before reaching this.

Never had he heard a voice so full of feeling, so soft, so seductive, so

full of tender appeal. Its every accent seemed to caress.

He cursed himself for brooding over her and then came back to his

brooding with the certainty of fate. Yet it should make no difference

in his fight with old Butler. He would kick that fawning, creeping

scoundrel out of his house if it was the last and only thing he ever

accomplished on earth. The only question he still debated was the time

and method of the execution of his plan.

One thing became more and more clear--he was going to need the full

use of every faculty with which God had endowed him and he must set his

house in order.

He opened the door of the little cupboard above his desk and took from

it a decanter of moonshine whiskey Dan Wiley, one of his mountain men,

had always kept filled for him. From the drawer he took two packs of

cards and a case of poker chips. The cards and chips he rolled in a

newspaper, placed in his stove and set them on fire. He smiled as he

stood and listened to the roar of the sudden blaze. He raised his window

and hurled the red-eyed decanter across the vacant lot in the rear

of his office and saw it break into a hundred fragments on a pile of

stones.

“Wonder what Dan will say to that when he comes this morning?” he

exclaimed, looking at his watch and resuming his seat.

He heard a stealthy footfall at the door, turned and saw the tall lanky

form of the mountaineer smiling at him.

“Well, Chief, you sent for me?”

“Yes, come in Dan!”

Dan Wiley tipped in and stood pulling his long moustache thoughtfully,

before taking a chair.

“What’s on your mind?” asked John.

“I heered somethin’.”

“About me?”

“Yes, and it pestered me.”

“Well?”

“They say you got drunk night ’fore last.”

“And you’re going to preach me a sermon on temperance, you confounded

old moonshining distilling sinner!”

“Ye mustn’t git drunk,” observed Dan seriously.

“But, didn’t you bring me the whiskey?”

“Not to git drunk on. I brought it as a compliment. My whiskey’s pure

mountain dew, life restorer--it’s medicine.”

“It’s good whiskey, I’ll say that,” said John. “Even if you don’t pay

taxes on it. You brought the men?”

“Yes, but Chief, I’m oneasy.”

“What about?”

“Don’t like the looks er them dam Yankees. I’m a member er the church

an’ a law abidin’ citizen.”

“Yet I hear that a revenue officer passed away in your township last

fall.”

“Rattlesnakes and Revenue officers don’t count--they ain’t human.”

“I see!” laughed John.

“Say,” Dan whispered, “you ain’t calculatin’ ter make a raid ternight

with them thousand blue-coats paradin’ round this town, are ye?”

“That’s my business, Dan,” was John’s smiling answer. “It’s your

business as a faithful night-hawk of the Empire to obey orders. Are you

ready?”

“Well, Chief, I followed you four years in the war, an’ I’ve never

showed the white feather yet, but these is ticklish times. There’s a

powerful lot er damfools gettin’ ermongst us, an’ I want ter ax ye one

question?”

“What?”

“Are ye goin’ ter git drunk ter-night?”

John walked to Dan’s side and placed his hand on his shoulder, and said

slowly:

“I’ll never touch another drop of liquor as long as I live. Does that

satisfy you?”

“I never knowd a Graham ter break his word.” John pressed the

mountaineer’s hand.

“Thanks Dan.”

“I’m with you--and I’ll charge the mouth of the pit with my bare hands

if you give the order.”

“Good. Meet me at the spring in the woods behind the old cemetery at

eleven o’clock to-night with forty picked men.”

“Forty!--better make it an even thousand, man for man with the Yanks.”

“Just forty men, mark you--picked men, not a boy or a fool among them.”

“I understand,” said Dan, turning on his heel toward the door.

“And see to it”--called John--“I want them mounted on the best horses in

the county and every man armed to the teeth.”

Dan nodded and disappeared.

By eight o’clock the town was in a ferment of excitement and the streets

were crowded with feverish groups discussing a rumour which late in the

afternoon had spread like wild-fire. From some mysterious source had

come the announcement that a great Ku Klux parade was to take place in

Independence at midnight for the purpose of overawing if not attacking

the regiment of soldiers, which had just been quartered in the town.

By eleven o’clock the entire white population, men, women and children,

were crowding the sidewalks of the main street.

Billy Graham passed John’s office with Susie Wilson leaning on his arm.

Billy was in high feather and Susie silent and depressed.

“Great Scott, Miss Susie, what’s the matter? This isn’t a funeral. It’s

a triumphant demonstration of power to our oppressors.”

“I wish they wouldn’t do it with all these troops in town,” answered the

girl, anxiously glancing at the dark window of John’s office.

“Bah! The Ku Klux have been getting pusillanimous of late--haven’t been

on a raid in six months. They need a leader. Give me a hundred of those

white mounted men and I’d be the master of this county in ten days!”

“It’s a dangerous job, Billy.”

“That’s the only kind of a job that interests me. A dozen wholesome

raids would put these scalawags and carpetbaggers out of business.

There ought to be five thousand men in line tonight. I’ll bet they

don’t muster a thousand. It wouldn’t surprise me if they backed out

altogether.”

“I wish they would,” sighed Susie.

“Of course you do, little girl,” said Billy with sudden patronising

tenderness. “I know what you need.”

Susie smiled and asked demurely:

“What?”

Billy seized both her hands and drew her under the shadow of a tree.

“A strong manly breast on which to lean--Susie, my Darling, I love you!

Will you be my wife?”

Susie burst into a fit of laughter and Billy dropped her hands in rage.

“You treat the offer of my heart as a senseless joke, young woman?”

“No, Billy dear, I don’t. I appreciate it more than words can express.

You have paid me the highest tribute a girl can receive, but the idea of

marrying a boy of your age is ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous! Ridiculous! How dare you insult me? I’m as old as you are!”

thundered Billy.

“Yes, we are each eighteen.”

“And your mother married at sixteen.”

“And she’s still only sixteen,” said the girl with a sigh.

“Wait a few days and I’ll show you whether I’m a man or not,” said

Billy, with insulted dignity. “Come, your mother is waiting for us at

the corner.”

Mrs. Wilson stood among a group of boys chatting and joking. She

belonged to the type of widows, fair, fat and frivolous. Time had dealt

gently with her. She was still handsome in spite of her weight,

and intensely jealous lest her serious daughter supplant her in the

affections of the youth of Independence.

She greeted Billy with just the words to heal his wounded vanity.

“My! Billy, but you look serious and manly! I’d kiss you if the other

boys were not here. You ought to be at the head of that line of white

raiders to-night”--she dropped her voice to a whisper--“I’ll be making

your disguise before long.”

Billy turned from Susie and devoted himself with dignity to her mother.

The widow lifted her hand in sudden warning.

“Sh! Billy, the enemy! There goes Stella Butler with that fat little

detective whom the Judge has imported with the troops.”

“Captain” Suggs of the Secret Service was more than duly impressed with

his importance as he forced his pudgy figure through the throng on the

sidewalk, ostentatiously protecting Stella from the touch of the crowd.

“It’s arrant nonsense, Miss Stella,” he was saying, as they passed.

“These Southern people are savages, I know----”

“Why, Captain, I’m a Southerner too,” said the girl archly.

“I mean the disloyal traitors of the South--not the broad-minded

patriots like your father,” Suggs hastened to explain. “I say it’s

arrant nonsense this talk of such a parade by these traitors. I credit

them with too much cunning to dare to flaunt their treason in the

streets here to-night with a regiment of troops and the head of the

Secret Service on the spot.”

The little fellow expanded his chest and puffed his cheeks.

Billy doubled his fist, and made a dash for him. With a suppressed

scream, Mrs. Wilson caught him.

“Billy! for heaven’s sake, are you crazy!” They passed on down the

street toward the Judge’s house.

“I’m not so sure they will not parade, Mr. Suggs,” Stella replied.

“Don’t be alarmed, Miss Stella!” he urged soothingly. “I’ve taken ample

means to protect you and your father from any attack of these assassins

and desperadoes if they dare enter the town.”

“I’m not afraid of them, Captain, she answered lightly.

“Of course not--we’re here and ready for them. The very audacity of

their manner is an insult to the Government.”

“I like audacity. It stirs your blood,” Stella cried, her brown eyes

twinkling.

Suggs leaned nearer and said in his deepest voice:

“Let them dare this insult to authority to-night and you’ll see audacity

come to sudden grief in front of your father’s house.”

“Have you prepared an ambush?” Stella asked eagerly.

“Better. We’ve an extra hundred loyal policemen on the spot. Each of

them is sworn to capture dead or alive any Ku Klux raider who shows his

head. I hope they’ll come--but it’s too good to be true. With a dozen

prisoners safe in jail, before to-morrow dawns I’ll have the secrets

of the Klan in my pocket. I’ll make things hum in Washington. Watch me.

It’s the big opportunity of life I’ve been waiting for--my only fear is

I’ll miss it.”

“I think you’ll get it, Mr. Suggs,” was the laughing answer.

She had scarcely spoken, when a tow-headed boy rushed into the middle of

the street and yelled, “Gee bucks! Look out! They’re a comin’!”

Men, women and children rushed into the street.

Suggs stood irresolute and tightened his grip on Stella’s arm.

Down the street cheers burst forth and as they died away the clatter of

horses’ hoofs rang clear, distinct, defiant. They were riding slowly as

in dress parade.

Another cheer was heard and Suggs stepped into the street and

reconnoitred.

His face wore a puzzled look as he returned to Stella’s side.

“They’ve actually ridden past the regimental camp. I can’t understand

why the Colonel did not attack them.”

“Gee Whilikens, there’s a million of ’em!” cried a boy nearby.

“Perhaps the Colonel thought discretion the better part of valour, Mr.

Suggs,” suggested Stella smilingly.

“Red tape,” the detective explained with disgust--“he has no order. Just

wait until the assassins walk into the trap I’ve laid for them. Come, we

will hurry to your gate. I want you to see what happens.”

They crossed the street and hurried to the Judge’s place.

Suggs summoned the commander of his force of “metropolitan” police and

in short sharp tones gave his orders.

“Are your men all ready, officer?”

“Yessir!”

“Fully armed?”

“You bet.”

“Handcuffs ready?”

“All ready.”

“Good. Throw your line, double column, across the street, stop the

parade and arrest them one at a time.”

Suggs squared his round shoulders as best he could; the officer saluted

and returned to his place to execute the order.

When the cordon formed across the street the boys yelled and the

news flashed from lip to lip far down the line. A great crowd quickly

gathered surging back and forth in waves of excitement as the raiders

approached.

The white ghostlike figures could now be seen, the draped horse and

rider appearing of gigantic size in the shimmering moonlight.

“Now we’ll have some fun,” exclaimed Suggs with a triumphant smile.

Stella trembled with excitement, two bright red spots appearing on her

dimpled cheeks, her eyes sparkling.

Amid constant cheers from the crowds the line of white figures slowly

approached the cordon of police without apparently noticing their

existence.

“Now for the climax of the drama!” cried Suggs, watching with eager

interest the rapidly closing space between the Clansmen and his police.

The officer in command, noting an uneasy tension along his lines,

crossed the street in front of his men exhorting them.

“Stand your ground, boys!” he said firmly.

“Better save your hides, you scalawag skunks!” yelled an urchin from the

crowd.

The leader of the Klan was now but ten feet away, towering tall, white

and terrible, with an apparently interminable procession of mounted

ghosts behind him.

The line of police swayed in the centre.

The Clansman leader lifted his hand, and the shrill scream of his

whistle rang three times, and each white figure answered with a long

piercing cry.

The police cordon broke into scurrying fragments and melted into the

throngs on the sidewalks, while the procession of white and scarlet

horsemen, without a pause, passed slowly on amid shouts of laughter from

the people who had witnessed the fiasco.

“Well, I’ll be d------! excuse me, Miss Stella!”

Suggs cried in a stupor of blank amazement, his round little figure

suddenly collapsing like a punctured balloon.

“You can’t help admiring such men, Captain!” the girl laughed.

Suggs who had lost the power of speech wandered among the crowd in

search of his commanding officer.

As the parade passed the Judge’s gate, Stella stood wide-eyed, tense

with excitement, watching the tall horseman with two scarlet crosses on

his breast who led the procession.

“The spirit of some daring knight of the middle ages come back to earth

again!” she cried. “Superb! Superb! I could surrender to such a man!”

A lace handkerchief fluttered from her bosom and waved a moment above

her head. The tall figure turned in astonishment, bowed, tipped his

spiked helmet, and without realising it suddenly reined his horse to a

stand--and the whole line halted.

The leader whispered to a tall figure by his side, apparently his

orderly, who turned to the line behind and shouted.

“Boys! three cheers for the little gal at the gate! She’s all right!

_The purtiest little gal in the countee--oh!_”

A rousing cheer rose from the ranks.

A ripple of sweet girlish laughter broke the silence which followed, the

lace handkerchief fluttered again and the line moved slowly on.

Stella counted them.

“Only forty men. And they dared a regiment!” With another laugh, she

deserted Suggs and disappeared in the flowers and shrubbery toward the

house as the last echoes of the raiders died away in the distance.

The Clansmen descended a hill, turned sharply to the right toward the

river and broke into a quick gallop. Within thirty minutes they entered

a forest on the river bank, and down its dim aisles, lit by moonbeams,

slowly wound their way to their old rendezvous.

The signal was given to dismount and disrobe the horses. Within a minute

the white figures gathered about a newly opened grave.

The men began to whisper excitedly to one another.

“What’s this?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Who’s dead?”

“You’re too many for me!”

“What’s up, Steve Hoyle?” asked one of the raiders.

“It’s beyond me, sonny. The Grand Dragon of the State honours us with

his presence to-night and is in command--he will no doubt explain. Have

a drink.” He handed the group a flask of whiskey, and passed on.

When the men had assembled beside the shallow grave, the chaplain led in

prayer.

The tall figure with the double scarlet cross on his breast removed his

helmet and faced the men.

“Boys,” began John Graham, “you have assembled here to-night for the

last time as members of the Invisible Empire!”

“Hell!”

“What’s that?”

The exclamations, half incredulous, half angry, came from every

direction with suddenness and unanimity which showed the men to be

utterly unprepared for such an announcement.

“Yes,” the even voice went on, “I hold in my hand an official order of

the Grand Wizard of the Empire, dissolving its existence for all time.

Our Commander-in-chief has given the word. As loyal members of the

order, we accept his message.”

“Then our parade to-night was not a defiance of these soldiers who have

marched into town?” sneered a voice.

“No, Steve Hoyle, it was not. Our parade to-night was in accordance with

this order of dissolution. It was our last formal appearance. Our work

is done----”

Steve saw in a flash his opportunity to defeat his enemy and make

himself not only the master of his Congressional District but of the

state itself.

“Not by a damn sight!” snapped the big square jaw.

“You refuse as the commander of this district to obey the order of the

Grand Wizard?” asked the tall quiet figure.

“I refuse, John Graham, to accept your word as the edict of God!” was

the quick retort. “Our men can vote on this and decide for themselves.”

“Yes, vote on it!”

“We’ll decide for ourselves!”

The quick responses which came from all sides showed the temper of the

men. John Graham stepped in front of the big leader of the district.

“Look here, Steve Hoyle, I want no trouble with you to-night, nor in the

future--but I’m going to carry this order into execution here and now.”

“Let’s see you do it!” was the defiant answer.

“I will,” he continued. “Boys!”

There was the ring of conscious authority in his tones and the men

responded with sharp attention.

“You have each sworn to obey your superior officer on the penalty of

your life?”

“Yes!”

“You are men of your word. As the Grand Dragon of the State I command

you to deliver to me immediately your helmets and robes.”

With the precision of soldiers they deposited them in the open grave.

Steve Hoyle surrendered his last.

When all had been placed in the grave, John Graham removed his own,

reverently placed it with the others, tied two pieces of pine into the

form of the fiery cross, lighted its ends, drew the ritual of the Klan

from his pocket, set it on fire and held it over the grave while the

ashes slowly fell on the folds of the white and scarlet regalia which

he also ignited. Some of the men were sobbing. While the regalia rapidly

burned he turned and said:

[Illustration: 0073]

“Boys, I thank you. You have helped me do a painful thing. But it is

best. Our work is done. We have rescued our state from Negro rule.

We dissolve this powerful secret order in time to save you from

persecution, exile, imprisonment and death. The National Government is

getting ready to strike. When the blow falls it will be on the vanished

shadow of a ghost. There’s a time to fight, and a time to retreat. We

retreat from a field of victory.

“I should have dissolved the Klan a month ago. I confess to you a

secret. I waited because I meant to strike with it a blow at a personal

enemy. I realise now that I stood as your leader on the brink of the

precipice of social anarchy. Forgive me for the wrong I might have done,

had you followed me. As Grand Dragon of the Empire I declare this order

dissolved forever in the state of North Carolina!”

He seized a shovel and covered with earth and leaves the ashes of the

burned regalia.

Steve Hoyle stepped quickly in front of his rival. The veins on his

massive neck stood out like cords and his eyes shone ominously in the

moonlight. The slender figure of John Graham instinctively stiffened at

the threat of his movement as the two men faced each other.

“The Klan is now a thing of the past?” asked Steve.

“Yes.”

“As though it had never been?”

“As though it had never existed.”

“Then your authority is at an end?”

“As an officer of the Klan, yes. As a leader of men, no.”

“The officer only interests me--Boys!” Steve’s angry voice rang with

defiance.

The men gathered closer.

“The Invisible Empire is no more. Its officers are as dead as the

ashes of its ritual. Meet me here to-morrow night at eleven o’clock to

organise a new order of patriots! Will you come?”

“Yes!”

“You bet your life!”

The answers seemed to leap from every throat at the same moment.

John Graham’s face went white for a moment and his fist closed.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Steve Hoyle,” he said

with slow emphasis.

“And traitors pose as moral leaders,” was the retort.

“Time will show which of us is a traitor. Will you dare thus to defy me

and reorganise this Klan?”

“Wait and see!”

John Graham stepped close to his rival, and, in a low voice unheard save

by the man to whom he spoke, said:

“Take back that order and tell those men to go home and stay there.”

“I’ll see you in hell first!” came the answer in a growl.

Scarcely had the words passed his lips when John Graham’s fist shot into

his rival’s face.

The blow was delivered so quickly Steve’s heavy form struck the ground

before the astonished men could interfere.

In a moment a dozen men sprang between them and John said with quiet

emphasis, glaring at his enemy:

“I’ll be in my office at ten o’clock to-morrow morning, to receive any

communication you may wish to make--you understand!”

And deliberately mounting his horse, he rode away into the night alone.

CHAPTER IV--THE OLD CODE

JOHN GRAHAM walked briskly to his office the next morning at a quarter

to ten, and found Dan Wiley standing at the door.

The lank mountaineer merely nodded, followed the young lawyer into

the office, and stood in silence watching him as he opened a case of

duelling pistols which had been handed down through four generations of

his family.

“Don’t do it,” said Dan abruptly.

“I’ve got to.”

“Ain’t no sense in it.”

“It’s the only way, Dan, and I’m going to ask you to be my second.”

Dan placed his big rough hand on the younger man’s shoulders.

“Lemme be fust, not second.”

“It’s not my way!”

“That’s why I’m axin ye. You’re the biggest man in the state! I seed it

last night as ye stood there makin’ that speech to the boys. You’ll

be the Governor if ye don’t do some fool thing like this. If ye

fight ’im, an’ he kills ye, your’e a goner. If you kill him, you’re

ruined--what’s the use?”

“It can’t be helped,” was the quiet answer.

“Are ye goin’ ter kill ’im?”

“Yes. The Klan was the only way to save our civilisation. I’ve sowed

the wind and now I begin to see that somebody must reap the whirlwind. I

realised it all in a flash last night when that scoundrel called the men

to reorganise.”

“They won’t follow him.”

“The fools will, and there are thousands outside clamouring to get in.

I’ve kept the young and reckless out as far as possible. Steve Hoyle

knows that he can beat me for Congress with this new wildcat Klan at

his back. He hasn’t sense enough to see that the spell of authority once

broken, he wields a power no human hand can control. It will be faction

against faction, neighbour against neighbour, man against man--the end

martial law, prison bars and the shadow of the gallows. I can save

the lives of thousands of men, and my state from crime and disgrace by

killing this fool as I’d kill a mad dog, and I’m going to do it!”

“Hit’ll ruin ye, boy!”

“I know it.”

“Look here, John Graham, do me a special favour. Leave Steve to me.

My wife’s dead and I aint got a chick or a child--you’ve defended me

without a cent and you’re the best friend I’ve got in the world. It’s my

turn now. Nobody would miss me.”

“I’d miss you, Dan!” said John slowly.

The two men silently clasped hands and looked into each other’s faces.

“You’re a fool to do this, boy”--the mountaineer’s voice broke.

“Of course, Dan, many of our old-fashioned ways are foolish but at least

they hold the honour of man, and the virtue of woman dearer than human

life!”

A boy suddenly opened the door without knocking and handed John a note.

He read it aloud with a scowl:

_My friends have decided that I shall not play into your hands by an

absurd appeal to the Code of the Dark Ages. I’ll fight you in my own

way at a time and place of my own choosing and with weapons that will be

effective._

_Steve Hoyle._

“Now, by gum, you’ll have to leave ’im to me,” laughed the

mountaineer.

John tore the note into bits and turned to the boy:

“No answer, you can go.”

“He’ll pick you off some night from behind a tree,” warned Dan.

“Sneak and coward!” muttered John.

“Ye won’t let me help ye?”

“No, go home and disband your men.”

“May they keep the rig?”

“If you won’t go on a raid.”

“I’ll not, unless you need me, John Graham,” cried the mountaineer

grasping again his young leader’s hand.

“All right. I can trust you. Keep their costumes in your house under

lock and key until I call for them.”

As Dan turned slowly through the door he drawled over his shoulder:

“You’ll ’em purty quick!”

CHAPTER V--GRAHAM VS. BUTLER

WHEN Dan Wiley closed the door John turned to his desk and drew from

a pigeon hole the mass of legal papers containing the evidence he had

gathered of Butler’s theft of his estate.

The dissolution of the Klan had left him only the process of the law

by which to recover it. Yet it was only a question of time when the

decision of the Supreme Court would hurl the Judge from the Graham home

and arraign him for impeachment.

Now that he was ready to file the suit, his mind was in a tumult of

hesitation. The soft invisible hand of a girl was holding his hand. He

gazed steadily at the documents and saw nothing that was within. The ink

lines slowly resolved themselves into the raven glossy hair of Stella

piled in curling confusion above her white forehead, and he was trying

in vain to find the depths of her wonderful eyes.

Something in the expression of those eyes held his memory in a perpetual

spell--their remarkable size and their dilation when she spoke. They

seemed to enfold him in a soft mantle of light.

He suddenly bundled the papers, replaced them, and took up his pen.

“I’ve got to see her--that’s all!” he exclaimed. “Who knows? Perhaps I’m

answering the great summons of life. I’ll put it to the test. At least

I’ll not throw my chance away for a house, some trees and a few acres of

dirt. When Love calls life’s too short for revenge.”

On a sheet of delicate old note paper with a crest of yellow and black

at the top, he wrote:

_My Dear Miss Butler:_

_You were gracious enough to ask me to call again. I cannot believe your

words were mere conventional phrases. Their accent was too genuine and

sincere. So I beg the privilege of calling to-day while your father,

my valiant political enemy, is busy down town with the delegates to his

convention which meets to-morrow. I anxiously await your answer._

_Sincerely,_

_John Graham_.

“Unless I’ve mistaken her character, she’ll see me!” he mused as he

sealed the note.

He went at once to Mrs. Wilson’s, found Alfred, and gave him the

missive.

“Take that to the Judge’s and give it to Miss Stella.”

Alfred stared.

“Down to de ole place!”

“Yes, of course.”

Alfred sat down and laughed.

“Well, fore de Lawd, doan dat beat ye!”

“Shut up, and hurry back--I’ll wait for you at the office.”

“Yassah, right away, sah!”

“And Alfred, not a word to a living soul of this.”

“No, sah, cose not Marse John--I know how tis ’my sef’--de course er

true love ain’t run smooth wid me nuther.”

“Quick, now, don’t you lose a minute.”

John returned to his office to await with impatience the word that would

mean the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

Alfred placed the note carefully under his hat and hastened to the

Judge’s, laughing and chuckling to himself.

For reasons best known to himself he entered by the carriage way.

At the wide double gate still stood the old lodge-keeper’s cottage,

a relic of the slave regime. In the cottage Aunt Julie Ann lived with

Uncle Isaac, her latest husband. Alfred had once been honoured with that

relationship before the war, but Isaac had whipped him and taken Aunt

Julie Ann by force of arms.

Alfred was much the larger man of the two, tall, awkward and slow of

movement, while Isaac was small and active as a cat. The agility of his

movements had swept Aunt Julie Ann’s imagination by storm. The contrast

to her own three hundred pounds had no doubt been the secret charm.

She had loudly professed her love for Alfred until she saw Isaac thrash

him, and without a word she surrendered to the new lord and refused to

recognise her former husband.

This happened two years before the war and Alfred had watched and waited

the day of his revenge to dawn. Many a night he had prowled around her

cottage spying and listening at the keyhole for her cry of help. He had

heard at last that Isaac was beating her unmercifully and he chuckled

with grim satisfaction. Every opportunity he got he hung around the

cottage and listened for the long expected cry. As he approached the

gates this morning in a peculiarly romantic frame of mind, remembering

the mission he was on, he heard Uncle Isaac’s voice in sharp accents

within, hectoring it over his former spouse.

He crept to the door and listened breathlessly.

“Dar now, I’se jes’ in time ter sabe my lady love!”

He peeped cautiously through the keyhole and saw Aunt Julie Ann’s huge

form busy at the ironing board, while Isaac sat majestically in a rocker

delivering to her an eloquent discourse on Sanctification in general

and his own sinless perfection in particular. Isaac had changed his name

several times after the war, following the example of many Negroes who

were afraid the use of their old master’s name might some day serve as

the badge of slavery. He had lately become a Northern Methodist

exhorter of great fame and went from church to church holding revivals,

particularly among the sisters of the church, calling them to the life

of stainless purity of those who had not merely “salvation,” as the

ordinary Methodist or Baptist understood it, but “sanctification” as

only those of the inner circle of the Lord knew it.

Isaac had long ago been “sanctified,” and had declared not only his

sinless nature but had boldy proclaimed himself a prophet of the new

dispensation and had finally fixed his name as “Isaac the Apostle,”

which had been simplified by busy clerks in written form to Isaac A.

Postle.

Aunt Julie Ann had heard of his wonderful success in his sanctification

meetings with misgivings, as the large majority of his converts were

invariably among the sisters. She had finally dared to question the

authenticity of his apostolic call. Her scepticism had aroused Isaac to

a frenzy of religious enthusiasm. That the wife of his bosom should be

the only voice to question his divine mission was proof positive that

she had in some mysterious way become possessed of the devil--perhaps

seven devils.

He determined to cast them out--by moral suasion if possible--if not,

by the main strength of his good right arm. He must set his own house

in order lest the very source of his inspiration be poisoned by lack of

faith. He was devoting this morning to the task when Alfred arrived.

He had just finished a long and fervid explanation of the mystery of

Sanctification.

“Fur de las’ time I axes ye, ’oman, what sez ye ter de word er de

Lawd?”

Aunt Julie Ann banged the board with the iron and merely grunted:

“Huh!”

Isaac rose and repeated his question with rising wrath:

“What sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?”

“I ain’ heared de Lawd say nuttin yit!”

“An’ why ain’t ye?”

“Case you keep so much fuss I can’t hear nuttin’, Isaac Graham!”

“Doan you call me dat name, you brazen sinner dat sets in de seat er de

scornful! Is ye ready ter repent an’ sin no mo?”

Isaac approached her threateningly and Alfred, watching with bulging

eyes, clutched the stick he had picked up.

“Tech me if ye dare--I bus’ yo head open wid dis flat-iron!”

Isaac knew his duty now and determined to perform it without further

ceremony. The anointed of the Lord had been threatened by the ungodly.

He drew a seasoned hickory withe from a crack where he had hidden it and

approached his sceptical spouse.

Aunt Julie Ann began to whimper.

“Put down dat flat-iron!” he sternly commanded.

Alfred peering through the keyhole gasped in amazement as he saw her

drop the iron heavily on the floor.

Isaac raised his switch and began to whip her. Around and around she

flew screaming, begging, pleading for mercy. But Isaac continued to lay

on steadily.

Alfred tried to rise and rush to the rescue but somehow he couldn’t

move. To his own surprise the performance fascinated him. He sat peering

with satisfaction.

“Dat’s paying her back now fur leavin’ me fer dat low live rascal. Give

it to her, old man! Give it to her! She sho’ deserves it!”

At length Isaac paused, and eyed her steadily while he shook his switch

with unction.

“I axes ye now, does ye believe in de Sanctification er de Saints?”

“Yes, Lawd, I sees it now!” she cried with fervour.

“An’ thanks me fer showin’ ye de error er yo’ way?”

“Yes, honey! I’m gwine ter seek dat Sanctification myself!”

“Glory! We’se er comin’ on!”

Aunt Julie Ann picked up the flat-iron. Isaac eyed her with suspicion

but he was too much elated with his victory to notice anything unusual

in her manner.

“Ye b’lieves now in de Sanctification er de Lawd’s messenger Isaac A.

Postle?”

With a sudden flash of her eye Aunt Julie Ann hurled the flat-iron

straight at the head of the Lord’s messenger saying:

“No, I ain’t sed dat yit!”

But Isaac was quick. He dodged in time. The corner of the flat-iron

merely tipped his ear and smashed through the window.

He grabbed his ear with sudden pain and gripped his switch with renewed

zeal.

“I see I’se des begun--one debble out, but dey’s six mo’ ter come!”

Again he whipped her around the room, threw her down, held her hair and

banged her head against the floor.

“Fur de las’ time I axes ye, is de Lawd’s messenger, Isaac A. Postle, a

sanctified one?”

Bang! Bang! Bang! went her head against the planks.

“Yes honey, I sees it now!” she cried with enthusiasm.

“Dat’s de way!”

“Does ye lub me fur showin’ ye de light?”

Bang! Bang! went her head.

“Yes, Lawd, I lub ye.”

“Say it strong.”

Bang! Bang! went her head.

“I lubs ye, my honey, yes I do!” shouted Aunt Julie Ann.

“An’ I’se de only man dat ye ebber lub?”

A moment’s pause, and again bang! bang! went her head.

Alfred couldn’t wait for the answer; he gripped his stick, sprang

through the door, knocked the Apostle flat on his back, and jumped on

him.

Aunt Julie Ann was more astonished than Isaac at her sudden deliverance.

She scrambled to her feet and gazed for a moment in amazement at Alfred

as he pummelled Isaac’s head against the floor with one hand and pounded

him with the other.

At every thump of his head Isaac yelled:

“God sabe me! de debble done got me! Help, Lawd, help! Save me

Lawd--save me now!” Alfred pounded steadily away.

Aunt Julie Ann, when she caught her breath, grasped Alfred’s arm and

yelled:

“What yer doin’ here, nigger!”

He wrenched his arm loose from her grasp and hit Isaac a smashing blow

in the mouth as he cried again for help.

“Git often my ole man. I tell ye!” screamed Aunt Julie Ann, gripping

Alfred by the throat.

“Name er God, ’oman, what yer doin’ when I comes here ter save ye!” cried

Alfred, wrenching himself from her grip and returning to his work on

Isaac.

“Git often ’im, I tell ye, fo’ I bus’ yer open!” she panted, towering

above the writhing pair. She began to pound Alfred over the head with

her fists, but he worked steadily away on Isaac without noticing the

interruptions.

Suddenly Aunt Julie Ann threw both arms around his neck, bent his

lank figure double across Isaac’s prostrate form, and hurled her three

hundred pounds squarely across the two writhing men. There was dead

silence for a moment and then Isaac groaned:

“God save me now! we’se bof gone! De house done fall on us!”

“Na! honey, it’s me!” cried Aunt Julie Ann, “an’ I got ’im in de gills!”

She rolled over and pulled Alfred with her--both hands gripped to his

throat.

In a moment Isaac was on his feet.

“De Lawd hear my cry!” he exclaimed with unction, pouncing on Alfred

and pounding him unmercifully while his faithful spouse held him fast.

Alfred found his voice at last, and began to yell murder.

Steve Hoyle, who was pacing the walk in front of the Judge’s anxiously

waiting an answer to a pleading letter he had sent to Stella asking for

an interview, heard the cries and rushed to Alfred’s rescue.

He pulled Isaac and Aunt Julie Ann off in time to save his hat and

portions of his clothes.

As he entered the cottage, he had seen instantly the note in John

Graham’s handwriting which Alfred had dropped on the floor. He picked it

up hastily and put it in his pocket.

When Alfred got out the door, he did not stand on the order of his

going. He struck a bee line for John Graham’s office and ran every step

of the way without looking back.

John was pacing the floor, his heart beating out the interminable

minutes.

Alfred burst into the room, his nose bleeding, a gash across his

forehead, his clothes torn and spotted with the blood from his nose. He

was still wild with the fear of death which had clutched his soul as the

light of day faded under Aunt Julie Ann’s awful grip on his throat.

He dropped, panting and speechless, on the floor. “For God’s sake,

Alfred, what’s happened!” John cried, seizing a glass of water and

pressing it to his lips.

“Dey kill me, Marse John!”

“Who did it?--what for?”

“De folks at de Judge’s.”

“Where’s my note?”

“Dunno sah!”

“Didn’t you deliver it?”

“Dunno sah!”

“Did you go to the house?”

“Dunno sah!”

“Where did this happen?”

“At de gate, sah, dey wuz layin’ fer me--De Judge mus’ er tole ’em ter

kill me.”

“Who did it?”

“Ole Isaac and Julie Ann jump on me fust, but tow’d de last dey wuz er

dozen. Six un ’em wuz er beatin’ me on de head at de same time, three er

four wuz er settin’ on top er me, two had me by the throat an’ de res’

un ’em wuz er steady kickin’ me in de stummick. Dey’d er had me sho’ by

dis time ef I hadn’t kotch my breaf an’ holler’d.”

“And who helped you?”

“Mr. Steve Hoyle wuz dar ter see Miss Stella an’ he run in an’ pulled

’em off. When I lit out for home I wuz er sight sho nuff. I hear Miss

Stella come up ter Mr. Steve an’ bust out laffin’ fit ter kill herself.”

“And you don’t know what became of the note?”

“Yassah! cose sah! dey tuck hit away fum me and tore it up--dat’s what

I fit ’em ’bout--yassah!” John’s face was white with rage. He sent Alfred

home, sat down at his desk, and drew out the papers he had laid aside.

The Judge had won. He had covered him with infamy in the eyes of his

beautiful daughter and had dared to perpetrate this infamous outrage. He

couldn’t understand Aunt Julie Ann’s part in the row, but the evidence

of Alfred’s plight could not be mistaken.

For three hours with stern set face he worked completing the case

of Graham vs. Butler. At four o’clock he had entered the suit and an

officer served the papers on the astonished Judge.

CHAPTER VI--SCALAWAG AND CARPETBAGGER

JOHN GRAHAM, as leader of the opposition, as well as for personal

reasons, was early on the grounds with half a dozen trusted lieutenants

to watch the action of the Republican County Convention. He was curious

to observe the effects of his suit on the Judge and his followers.

He soon discovered that the scathing recital of fraud which he had

incorporated into the form of his complaint as published in the

morning’s paper was a mistake. It had been accepted by the mottled crew

of nondescript politicians and Negroes as proof positive of his own

depravity and the Judge’s spotless purity.

The Convention was seated in the open air on improvised boards. The

Judge was peculiarly sensitive to the atmosphere of a crowd of Negroes.

He had to associate with them to get their votes, but like all poor

white men of Southern birth, he hated them without measure.

This Convention of his home county was the most important crisis in the

development of his ambitions as the leader of his party in the South.

He was a candidate for the United States Senate. Delegates were to be

elected to-day to the state convention. Unless he could go with a united

front from his home county he was doomed.

His opponent, Alexander Larkin, was the boldest, most unscrupulous, and

powerful Carpetbag adventurer who had ever entered the South from the

slums of the North.

Larkin had made himself the Chairman of the Republican State Executive

Committee, and was running neck and neck with the Judge for the Senate.

He had determined to break his opponent’s backbone by capturing the

whole, or at least a part of the delegates from Butler’s home county.

The audacity of this movement had fairly taken the Judge’s breath. He

halted Suggs in his thrilling pursuit of Ku Klux evidence and sent him

North on an important mission. He meant to be fully prepared for any

trick Larkin might spring. Suggs was bustling about among the delegates

conscious that he was the trusted lieutenant of the coming man.

The Carpetbagger had so timed his anonymous letter to John Graham that

the shadow of disgrace thus thrown over Butler’s name would give him the

balance of power. He could not foresee the chain of trivial events which

would produce the terrific document John Graham had filed. Every word of

its passionate arraignment had the sting of a scorpion, and its effects

had been electrical. By instinct the crowd had accepted John’s suit as a

blow at the cause and Butler had become their champion.

As the Judge approached the crowd accompanied by Stella and Steve Hoyle,

John saw with sinking heart that the first effect of his suit had been

to bring Steve and Stella closer together and to dig an impassable gulf

between him and the girl he had begun unconsciously to worship. She

had evidently laid aside her hatred of politics and become her father’s

champion. And he knew that Steve Hoyle had lost no time in this crisis

in poisoning her mind forever against him. In fact Steve had spent the

morning by her side developing the bitter sentences in his complaint

into revelations of hereditary insanity and envenomed malice.

The girl had, however, taken his statements with reservations. She would

stand by her father before the world and she would publicly insult John

Graham if he ever dared give her the opportunity, but deep down in

her heart she half suspected the truth. The memory of the bitter feud

between her mother and father over some secret connected with this

estate and her father’s shuffling evasions, returned to her now with

startling import.

Her mother was of the old regime of the South, an aristocrat of

aristocrats to her finger tips. Her people had blotted her very name

from their memory for her marriage to Butler. She had fiercely resented

to the day of her death this ostracism. The fear that her husband was

a scoundrel, which slowly grew into a certainty in later years, at last

broke her proud spirit. She gave up the struggle and died.

There were moments in which Stella felt this inherited repugnance to her

father when the proud spirit of her mother’s blood ruled in her soul.

There were other moments when she felt the necessity of tricks and lies

to make life agreeable and accepted her father as of the inevitable

order of human existence.

This morning she was her father’s daughter. Whether he was guilty

or innocent she would show John Graham and his proud Bourbon set her

contempt for them and their opinions.

As the three reached the edge of the crowd she was smiling graciously on

Steve in answer to a sally of his cheap wit. She fixed John with a look

of contempt and his soul grew sick with the consciousness that he had

paid too great a price for his suit against the Judge. In her anger she

was superb. The very air about her seemed charged with the intensity

of her personality. She radiated it in every direction. It was the

consciousness of this intensity of nature which drew John to her with

resistless power. No other type of woman could interest him, and Stella

was endowed with this subtle magnetism as no human being he had ever

met. It spoke in every movement of her body, in every accent of her

voice.

As she passed and turned her back on him, the sense of a hopeless and

irreparable loss crushed his spirit. The words of the preacher rang in

his soul, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and

forfeit his life.”

“What are houses and lands after all, before the elemental forces

which make life worth while,” he muttered. “I’ve an almost irresistible

impulse to knock Steve Hoyle down, seize her in my arms, smother her

with kisses and carry her off to some cave on a mountain! To the devil

with goods and chattels, houses and lands.”

With a start he came down from the clouds of fancy. She had dismissed

Steve, taken the Judge’s arm, and was actually going to walk down the

aisle through that mob of Negroes and greasy politicians and accompany

him to the platform.

When they reached the centre of the crowd, seated in semicircle about

the covered speaker’s stand, pandemonium broke loose. The Judge received

the most remarkable ovation of his life.

The throng leaped to their feet and screamed themselves horse.

“Keep your house Judge!” yelled a henchman.

“Houses were built for patriots, and jails for traitors!”

The Judge bowed and again the crowd yelled.

Larkin from the platform watched the demonstration with amazement.

“I’ve miscalculated. They’re all thieves and scoundrels. I’ve made him a

hero.”

With a hypocritical smile he seized the Judge’s hand, wrung it heartily,

congratulated him, and drew him to the platform. Stella sprang lightly

up after him, took a rosebud from her belt, pinned it on her father’s

slouchy ill-fitting broadcloth coat, kissed him and amid the cheers of

the mob retraced her steps and left the ground with Steve Hoyle.

John watched her lift her parasol above her dainty head with smothered

curses at his folly. He had unconsciously taken his own hat off and

stood bareheaded in the broiling Southern sun of a June day. The

bitterness of his mistake stirred him to more dogged persistence. With

an effort he turned to the Judge and the Convention--trying in vain

to shake off the impression Stella had left. But he found his mind

constantly wandering from the scene. Wherever he looked, within or

without, he saw the delicate oval face with those great brown eyes

smiling as they did the night he met her in the hall of his old home.

At length he awoke from his reverie with his eye resting unconsciously

on Larkin, the Judge’s opponent. He had never seen him before, though

his name had become known in every county of the state.

He was a man of more than the average height, of powerful build, high

intellectual forehead, a full beard, long, silken, snow white. His hair,

also long and white, was inclined to curl at the ends, and a pair of

piercing black eyes looked out fearlessly from shaggy brows. He carried

himself with instinctive dignity, and his whole appearance proclaimed a

bold and powerful leader of men.

Rumour said that he had been a Wesleyan preacher in England but had been

expelled in some factional fight and had sought his fortunes in America.

Darker rumour whispered that he had a criminal record and that he had

never even attained citizenship in the country of his adoption. Such

rumours, however, counted for nothing in the tainted atmosphere of the

riot and revolution of the Reconstruction period. From the sewers of the

North, jail birds and ex-convicts had poured into the stricken South as

vultures follow the wake of a victorious army.

In two years Larkin had proven himself a party leader of remarkable

executive ability and on the hustings had shown himself an orator of

undoubted eloquence. He was fast becoming the idol of the more daring

and radical wing of his party. He boldly proclaimed and practiced Negro

equality and held up to public scorn any man who dared to quibble on the

issue.

So bold and radical were his utterances the Negroes were a little afraid

of him. Yet he was steadily gaining in his influence over them. He

knew that they constituted nine-tenths of the voting strength of the

Republican party in the South, and that ultimately the man who pandered

most skilfully to their passions must become master of the situation.

He had laid siege to Uncle Isaac immediately on his arrival and had

played on his vanity so deftly that the Apostle of Sanctification had

been completely fascinated by the Carpetbagger.

The moment Larkin’s eye rested on Isaac seated in the crowd he saw in a

flash the master stroke by which he could break the spell of the

Judge’s influence over the delegates. He quickly threaded his way to

the Apostle’s side and escorted him to the speakers’ stand with his arm

around his waist. He lifted him to the platform, forced the Judge to

rise and shake hands, and seated Isaac by Butler’s side. The Negroes

burst into a frenzy of applause.

So elated was Isaac by his newly found honours he began to interrupt the

meeting by fervid religious exclamations to the intense disgust of the

Judge who squirmed with increasing anger at each new outburst. When

Isaac recognised any of his dusky acquaintances in the crowd he waved

his hand and pointed his remarks in that direction.

“Yas Lawd! De year er juberlee is come, an’ I’se right here!”

A loud guffaw would invariably answer his sally.

Larkin ostentatiously consulted Isaac from time to time as to the

conduct of the convention and every Negro watched him spellbound.

The Judge’s henchmen were dismayed at the impending stampede by the

Carpetbagger. Butler had assured them the night before that they had

nothing to fear from Larkin. But it was only too apparent that he

had underestimated his opponent. Larkin’s commanding appearance, his

magnetism and eloquence, the boldness and evident sincerity of his

profession of Negro equality were steadily winning adherents.

Personally the Judge cut a poor figure beside him with his slouchy

ill-fitting clothes, his fawning shuffling walk, his drooping head,

shifting eyes, and his vague professions of platitudes.

Butler watched Larkin’s sudden growth of power with sullen rage. He had

in reserve a weapon which he had found in the Carpetbagger’s English

career, with which he could crush him at a single blow, but he had not

expected to be forced to the extreme necessity of using it. For many

reasons he wished to beat Larkin in an open fight. The weapon he could

use was a dangerous one. He knew that Larkin had learned the facts

concerning his confiscation of the Graham estate, and he was not sure

how far his resentment would go in retaliation for an attack on his

personal character. But he determined to put a stop to Isaac’s insolence

which was rapidly becoming unendurable.

The Judge leaned over toward the enthusiastic Apostle and with a frown

said:

“Shut your mouth and behave yourself!” Isaac subsided with a look of

injured innocence directed in mute appeal toward Larkin.

Again the Carpetbagger saw his opportunity. He approached Isaac, seized

his hand, slipped his arm around his shoulder and whispered:

“Brother, I’m going to make a motion to amend the Judge’s list of

delegates by substituting six men of colour for six of the poor white

men he has chosen. I’ll put your name first. Will you make a speech in

favour of my motion?”

“Dat I will!”

“Then repeat that story of the vision you told me last night, and apply

it to the Judge--will you do it?”

“Make de movement, an’ I sho’ ye!” whispered Isaac.

Larkin’s bold motion, a direct appeal to the Negro to use his power

against the white man, took the Judge’s breath. He stared at his

opponent in blank amazement while Larkin smiled at him with good-natured

contempt.

“And I have asked,” continued the Carpetbagger, “a distinguished leader

of his race, Mr. Isaac A. Postle, a constituent and neighbour of Judge

Butler, to address the Convention before the motion is opened to general

debate. I am sure the Convention will give its unanimous consent to hear

him.”

The roar of applause which greeted this remark left no doubt as to their

consent. Larkin seized Isaac and drew him before the speaker’s table

with his arm again affectionately around him.

Isaac was in a broad grin and evidently enjoyed his honours. He cleared

his throat and glanced at the Judge. The Negroes burst into roars of

laughter and the Apostle lifted his hand solemnly for silence.

Butler scowled and shuffled uneasily while Larkin’s face was wreathed in

smiles.

“Gemmens an’ feller citizens!” Isaac began with great deliberation.

“I’se called by de Lawd dis mawnin’ ter come up on high and expose de

vision dat I seed in de dead er de night las’ week. I drempt a dream.

I dream dat I die and go ter heaben. An’ as I wuz gwine long up de hill

ter de pearly gates who should I meet comin’ down de hill but our good

frien’ Judge Butler----”

The Judge gave a sharp little angry cough, pulled his long black

whiskers and crossed his legs quickly. Isaac glanced at him and walled

his eyes at the dusky crowd who broke into another roar of laughter.

“Yassah!” he went on, “I met Judge Butler comin’ down de hill lookin’

pow’ful sad. An’ he say ter me:

“‘Isaac, whar ye gwine?’

“‘Gwine ter heben,’ sezzi.

“‘Ye can’t git in!’ sezze.

“‘Why so?’ sezzi.

“‘Case ye got ter be er ridin’,’ sezze--‘I jes come down frum dar--an’

hits des lak I tell ye!’

“‘Is dat so?’ sezzi.

“‘But I tell ye what we kin do, Isaac!’ sezze.

“‘I’ll git on yo back an’ ride up to de gate, an’ we bof git in.”

“Dat seem all right ter me fust off so I hump mysef an’ de Jedge git

on my back, an’ I gallup up de hill ter de pearly gates, an’ de angel

Gabul, he look over de fence an’ say:

“‘Who’s dar?’

“‘Hit’s me, Jedge Butler,’ sezze.

“‘Ridin’ er walkin’?’ de angel say.

“‘Er ridin’!’ sezze.

“An’ I chuckled ter myse’f dat I’se er settin my feet in de gates er

glory!

“An’ den de angel say:

“‘Des hitch yer hoss outside an’ come in!’

“An’ bress God! ef de Jedge didn’t hitch me ter de pos’ on de outside

an’ go in an’ leave me dar!”

Again the crowd screamed with laughter. Wave after wave swept them while

Isaac folded his hands across his little protruding stomach and laughed

with them. In vain the chairman rapped for order.

The Judge flushed red with anger and called Suggs to his side. Larkin

bent low his face between his hands, convulsed with laughter.

When at length the tumult wore itself out Isaac’s voice rang over the

assembly in sharp vibrant triumphant tones:

“An’ I moves yer, sah, dat we all unanimously second de motion er Brer

Larkin!”

Amid a shout of approval he sat down.

The Carpetbagger, elated by his success, determined to make a bolder

stroke, capture the entire delegation and put the Judge out of the race.

He leaped to his feet and launched at once into an eloquent appeal for

the equal rights of man, meaning, of course, the right of the Negro race

to rule the white man of the South, the former slave to rule his master.

Bold as a lion by instinct, he did not quibble over words. He told the

Negro that his hour had come to strike for his right by force of arms

if need be. He denounced the Ku Klux Klan in the bitterest terms. Every

Negro followed his scathing words with breathless attention. For the

moment he was the veritable prophet of the Most High God. Never before

had they heard any man in public dare thus to arraign this dreaded order

of white and scarlet horsemen. Here was their champion whose valiant

soul knew not the fear of man, ghost, clansman or devil. He was

transfigured before their yes into the white-haired prophet of the Lord,

and they hung on his every word as inspired.

In another moment he would have made his motion for a solid Negro

delegation and stampeded the Convention had it not been for the single

burst of eloquence with which he closed his speech. Just at the moment

when he held every heart in the dusky host in the hollow of his hand, he

thundered:

“Against the white traitor of the South who has perpetrated these wrongs

on your defenseless heads I hurl the everlasting curse of God! Only a

race of dastards and cowards would thus sneak under the cover of night

to strike their foes!”

He had scarcely uttered the words when Billy Graham rushed from the

outer circle of the crowd where he had sauntered with Mrs. Wilson,

surrounded by a dozen fun-making youngsters, and ran toward the

platform.

“Wait a minute!” he said, with uplifted hand, his voice quivering with

rage.

Larkin’s arm dropped; he halted in amazement, every eye fixed on Billy.

John Graham sprang to his feet with a muttered oath of surprise in time

to see Billy square himself in front of the speaker and say:

“If you think the Southern people a race of cowards and dastards come

down off that platform and knock this chip off my shoulder, you old

white-livered cur!”

He placed a chip on his shoulder and strutted before Larkin. The

Carpetbagger was too astonished to reply. He gazed at the boy in

confusion and muttered an inarticulate protest.

Billy jumped on the platform and walked around him like a game bantam,

crying:

“Knock it off--d------ you! knock it off! If you want to test it! A

dozen of my friends are out there, yours all around you, a hundred to

one, but knock it off! knock it off!”

John Graham had reached the platform by this time, seized Billy and led

him back through the crowd to Mrs. Wilson who was in hysterics, the boys

vainly trying to quiet her.

“What the devil’s the matter with you--have you gone crazy?” John

whispered, shaking Billy fiercely. “Go home and behave yourself!”

“Attend to your own business, John Graham; I’m attending to mine!” was

Billy’s sullen answer. And without another word he led Mrs. Wilson away

followed by his companions, while John gazed after him with increasing

astonishment.

In the confusion which followed Billy’s sudden challenge the Judge

saw his chance. He sprang to his feet and moved to adjourn for dinner.

Before Larkin could recover himself the motion was carried and the

Convention adjourned.

Butler turned to the Carpetbagger and said:

“I wish to see you in my hotel immediately on a matter of the gravest

importance.”

“I haven’t time, Judge,” Larkin carelessly answered.

“I’m in no mood to be trifled with,” answered the Judge.

“It’s a waste of time, your Honour--you’re a back number. Why should I

talk with you?”

“There’s one reason big enough to interest you,” the Judge answered with

sinister suggestion.

Larkin fixed his opponent a moment with his piercing eyes and said with

contempt:

“I’ll join you in a moment.”

The Judge beckoned to Suggs who had hovered near, and the detective

handed him a package of documents from his inside pocket. The movement

was not lost on Larkin who was watching his enemy with uneasiness.

Suggs accompanied the Judge to his room at the hotel and awaited his

call outside the door. Larkin looked at him with a scowl as he entered.

The Judge adjusted his slouchy coat, shuffled his feet, and stroked his

beard with deliberation as Larkin seated himself.

“I’m going to ask you, Larkin,” he began, “to write out your resignation

as Chairman of our State Executive Committee and withdraw from this

race.”

The Carpetbagger laughed aloud.

“Well, you are an ass, you fawning, timeserving Scalawag--what do you

take me for?”

“For the criminal adventurer you are!” thundered the Judge.

“I’ll not bandy words with you, Butler. I’ve got you now, just where I

want you. Five minutes more of that Convention and you’ll be a memory as

a politician. You never had a principle in your life. A professed leader

of the Republican party in the South composed of Negroes, you loathe the

very sight of a Negro. You profess to be a Southerner, yet your ear is

always to the ground to hear the slightest whisper from the lowest breed

of Yankee demagogues in the North. You lie to the Negro, you lie to

the Southern white man, you lie to the Yankee. You’re a pusillanimous,

office-seeking turncoat beneath the contempt of a man. Why did you send

for me?”

“To tell you that it’s time for you to move on, sir!” cried Butler with

spluttering rage. “You Carpetbag vultures have winged your way into the

South to tear from the loyal men of native birth the rewards of their

long patriotic services. Go back to the slums and prison pens of the

North where you belong!”

“What do you mean?” Larkin broke in with sudden energy.

“That you are a criminal adventurer, sir; that’s what I mean!”

Larkin laughed again.

“Is that all?”

“And I have in my pocket the documents to prove that you have never

acquired citizenship in the State of New York!”

“True, but irrelevant. I am a citizen now of this state under the

Reconstruction Acts, and I’m going to represent the old commonwealth in

the next Senate while you sink once more into the obscurity your feeble

intelligence has prepared for you. Is this all you have to say?”

“No, sir, it’s not!” whispered the Judge hoarsely with triumphant

malice. “I have a letter in my pocket from the warden of the prison in

England where you served your time, enclosing your photograph.”

With a sudden cry of anguish Larkin leaped the distance separating them,

gripped Butler by the throat, hurled him back in his seat, and held

him strangling, spluttering, squirming in mortal terror. In a moment he

released him, sank to a chair and buried his face in his hands.

“So! I am your master after all,” the Judge sneered, recovering from his

terror.

Larkin lifted his lion-like head a moment and looked at his opponent.

“Yes, I give up. I’ll withdraw from the race if you’ll keep my secret.”

“I’ll make no conditions with you sir; I mean to brand you a felon

throughout the length and breadth of this land!”

“Not if you’ve an ounce of manhood in you,” said the Carpetbagger with

quiet dignity. “You can’t do it when I tell you the truth. Fifteen years

ago I was an honoured minister of the gospel in Australia. An enemy of

mine in England published against me an infamous slander. I returned

to ask reparation. He not only refused to give it but insulted me by

a dastardly blow in a public assembly. In a moment of insane rage I

returned his blow with one which resulted in his death. Four months

later I found myself, a man of culture, refinement and the highest

order of social talents, a convict in prison garb serving a sentence for

manslaughter. I emerged more dead than alive--it was late in life, but

I lifted up my head, sought a new world and began all over again.

Once more I’ve shown my power as a leader of men. It was born in me--a

God-given birthright. My hair is white now with the frost of the grave;

I’m alone and friendless. Put yourself in my place. It’s my last chance.

You are twenty years younger. I ask your pity, your sympathy, your

friendship. Come, Judge, you too are a soldier of fortune in conquered

territory and have your own secrets. Fight me fair.”

“I’ll fight you with every weapon in my power, fair or foul. You’re in

my way; get out of it,” sneered the Judge.

“You contemptible cur!” cried Larkin. “I could strangle you!”

“No doubt,” sneered Butler. “If you dared!”

“Take care, you cowardly dog!” leaped the threat from the lips of the

Carpetbagger, with a sudden flash of incontrollable rage; and again his

massive figure towered over the Judge’s slouching form. Butler’s

shifting eyes blinked in terror as he spluttered:

“I’ll keep your secret on one condition!”

“What is it?” snapped Larkin.

“You’re a man of genius. Use your talents for me, and we’ll be friends.”

“You have told no one the facts you have discovered?”

“No. Suggs knows only of the investigation as to your citizenship.”

“I accept your terms,” was the quiet answer. The Convention ended in

unexpected harmony, electing a solid Butler delegation. Larkin lingered

in town for several days and, to the surprise and uneasiness of the

Judge, stopped with Uncle Isaac in the little cottage by his gate.

CHAPTER VII--THE REIGN OF FOLLY

WITHIN two weeks Steve Hoyle’s new Klan was organised and in absolute

control of the Piedmont Congressional District.

John Graham saw that his defeat was a certainty and gave up the

political fight in disgust. But he determined to prevent at all hazards

the degradation of the Klan into an engine of personal vengeance

and criminal folly. There was but one way to do it. He dreaded the

undertaking, yet there was no help for it. He must again fight the devil

with fire. The reign of terror inaugurated by the Black Union League had

made necessary the Ku Klux Klan. There must be a power to hold in check

Steve’s irresponsible gang.

He immediately organised in each county a vigilance committee composed

of the bravest and most reliable members of the old Klan who had refused

to follow Steve. Over these men he sought to exercise only a moral

influence as their former Commander-in-chief, save in his own county

where his word was accepted as law by the surviving veterans of the

regiment he had commanded in the Civil War.

These men he instructed to watch the movements of Steve’s followers,

learn in advance of their intended raids, break them up by moral suasion

if possible; by force as a last resort.

He had found the task a tremendous one. For the first time he realised

the terrible meaning of the lawless power of the Klan. The secrecy of

their movements under his own leadership had been perfect. Yet with his

knowledge of their methods he had believed it would be comparatively.

easy to defeat their plans. He found it next to impossible. In spite

of the utmost vigilance on the part of his committees, the new Klan had

inaugurated a reign of folly and terror unprecedented in the history of

the whole Reconstruction saturnalia.

They whipped scalawag politicians night after night and drove them from

the county. They called on carpetbagger postmasters who immediately left

for parts unknown. They whipped Negroes, young and old, for all sorts of

wrongdoing, real or fancied, and finally began to regulate the general

morals of the community. They whipped a rowdy for abusing his wife and

on the same night tarred and feathered a white girl of low origin who

lived in the outskirts of town and ran her from the county.

The morning after this outrage occurred, John Graham walked into Steve’s

law office, brushed by his clerks and boldly entered the inner room

where his enemy was at work.

Steve sprang to his feet and his hand instinctively sought the revolver

in his hip pocket.

“You needn’t be alarmed; I’m not ready for you yet,” said John, his eyes

holding Steve’s with their steady light.

“Well, I’m ready for you,” was the quick retort. “What do you want?”

“Merely to give you a little advice this morning.”

“When I need your advice, I’ll let you know.”

John closed the door.

“Your men are covering the name of the Ku Klux Klan with infamy,” John

went on evenly. “If you have even the rudiments of common sense you must

know that within a few weeks these fools will be beyond your control.”

“I haven’t felt the need of your help as yet,” interrupted Steve.

“No, but I’m generous. I volunteer to anticipate the needs of your weak

intelligence.”

“John Graham,” Steve broke in angrily, “if you have anything to say to

me, say it, and get out of this room!”

“I will say it, my boy, and--don’t--you--forget it!” John answered with

quiet emphasis, taking a step closer to his rival. “I’m close on the

track of the men who are at present terrorising this county. I’ll come

up with them some night and there’ll be business for the coroner next

day. Dare to permit another outrage of a personal character in this

county and I’ll find your men if I drag the bottom of hell for them,

and when I do, I’ll hang them to a tree in front of your door. And--mark

you--if I fail to find them I’ll--hold--you--personally--responsible!”

Before Steve could reply he turned on his heel, slammed the door and

left.

CHAPTER VIII--THE MASQUERADERS

IMMEDIATELY following the interview with Steve the character of the

raids of the new Klan changed to harmless pranks and practical jokes on

impudent Negroes, scalawags and carpetbaggers, and John Graham observed

it with a sigh of relief. Some of these escapades he could have enjoyed

himself--particularly a call they made on the Apostle of Sanctification.

Uncle Isaac had greatly increased his prestige and following since

the sensational speech he made in the County Convention and his public

association with Larkin.

Following up his victory over the seven devils in Aunt Julie Ann, he

had begun a series of revival meetings in the Northern Methodist church,

calling its members to come up still higher. With each night his fervour

and eloquence had increased. On this particular evening he attained

unheard-of heights of inspiration, and announced not only his sinless

perfection and his apostolic call, but the more startling fact that he

was in daily personal communication with Jehovah himself. Amid a chorus

of “Amens” and “Glory hallelujahs” from the sisters he boldly declared:

“Hear de Lawd’s messenger! I come straight from him. De Lawd come every

day ter my house. I sees him wid my own eyes. De debbil he doan pester

me no mo. I’se de Lawd’s sanctified one. I done wipe my weepin’ eyes an’

gone up on high. Will ye come wid me breddren an’ sisters! I walk in de

cool er de mawnin an’ de shank er de even’ wid de Lawd and de Lawd walks

wid me. An’ I ain’t er skeered er nuttin in heaben above er hell below.”

He had scarcely uttered the words when a white-robed ghost, fully ten

feet high, walked solemnly down the aisle. There was a moment of awful

silence. Isaac’s jaw dropped in speechless terror. A sister in the amen

corner screamed, and the Apostle sprang through the window behind the

pulpit without a word, carrying the sash with him. In a minute the

church was empty and the revival of Sanctification came to an untimely

end.

It soon became the fashion for these merry masqueraders to call in

groups on the pretty girls in town with the offer of their knightly

protection. Frequently they spent the evening dancing and making merry,

always in full disguise, guarding with the utmost care their identity.

The mystery attending such visits, their secret signs and passwords,

and the thrilling call of their whistles gave to these performances a

peculiar atmosphere of romance and daring, and their visits came to be

prized by the fair ones as tributes to their beauty and popularity.

A sign of invitation was devised by order of the leader of the raiders

and posted one night on the bulletin board of the post office. The girl

who wished the honour of such a call had only to express it by walking

through the main street to the post office with a scarlet bow of ribbon

tied on her left arm, and on the night following, promptly at ten

o’clock, the knights on their white-robed horses would call.

Stella Butler had immediately become the most popular girl in

Independence in spite of her father’s politics. Her beauty was

resistless. Every boy on whom she chose to smile was at once her friend

and champion. The old Graham house became the most popular meeting place

of the youth and beauty of the town, and the only men not welcome there

were its real owner and his pugnacious younger brother.

Stella was fairly intoxicated with her social victory. Steve led in the

devoted circle of her admirers, each day pressing his suit with humble

and dogged persistence. She smiled in triumph at his abject surrender

but continued to keep him at arm’s length, showering her favours on all

who were worth while.

She determined to crown her social leadership with a unique fancy dress

ball by inviting the Klan masqueraders to dance with a select group of

her girl friends at her home. The Klan itself was too deep a mystery for

her to note the difference in the character of the raids since the night

its gallant horsemen had cheered at her father’s gate. She only knew

in a general way that the Klan was born in the unconquered and

unconquerable spirit of the old Bourbon South, the South of her mother,

the only South worth cultivating socially.

So when the Judge’s beautiful daughter, radiant and smiling, walked down

the main street of Independence with the scarlet sign of the Klan on her

left arm, she paralysed the business of the town. Every clerk stopped

work and took his stand at the door or window until she was out of

sight.

Her name was on every lip. If the raiders should accept her invitation,

and appear at the old Graham mansion the evening following, the Judge

would be in the anomalous position of a host who seeks the life of his

guests. For the destruction of the Klan by exile, imprisonment and

death had become the main plank in his political platform under Larkin’s

guidance.

Before Stella reached home the town was in a ferment of excitement to

know whether the Judge had given his consent to this daring act. The

older heads were sure that it was a child’s thoughtless whim and that

Butler would promptly and vigorously repudiate it.

John stood in the shadow by the window of his office and watched her

pass in anguish. He saw in this invitation the complete triumph of the

man he was coming to hate with deeper loathing than he had ever felt for

her father. He was sure it was an inspiration of Steve Hoyle.

He observed old Larkin talking earnestly to Isaac on the other side

of the street, and began to regret that the regiment of United States

troops had been removed on the Carpetbagger’s advice.

Were they here, he would suggest to the Judge that they be stationed

about his home to-morrow night and those masked fools be kept out. He

resented such a masquerade, not only because it was a travesty of the

tragic drama in which he had played a part, but because he felt a deep

sense of foreboding over the possible outcome of the affair. However

harmless the intentions of the leaders of such a prank, there was always

the chance of a drunken fool among them.

“My God,” he exclaimed with a shiver of dread, “what will happen if

the Judge in an ugly stupid temper encounters one of those masked fools

maddened by drink!”

He sat down and hastily wrote a note of warning to Butler without a

signature, tore it up in anger and threw it in his waste basket.

“Bah! it’s nonsense!” he muttered in rage. “Her father is in no danger.

The trouble is with me--I’m jealous, jealous, jealous! of the men who

can see her. I want to dance with her myself. I’m mad with a passion I

dare not breathe aloud.”

Yet the longer he brooded over the thing, the keener became his sense of

its dangers and the more oppressive the fear that it would result in a

tragedy.

He sat down and rewrote his warning to the Judge, crossed the street and

dropped the letter in the post office.

CHAPTER IX--A COUNTER STROKE

WHEN John returned to’ his desk he found Dan Wiley standing in the

middle of the room pulling his long black moustache with unusual energy.

The young lawyer seated himself and motioned the mountaineer to a chair.

“No time ter fool.”

“Steve’s gang from up in the hills in my township is on the way ter

Independence. They’re goin’ ter raid old Sam Nickaroshinski, the Jew

storekeeper, and rob ’im ter-night.”

“Nonsense, Dan, they haven’t got that low.”

“Hit’s jest like I tell ye. They’re a gang of flightin’ drunken devils.

They’ll do anything. I got a man to join ’em, an’ he gimme the

whole plot. Steve Hoyle don’t know nothin’ about it no more than their

township leader does.”

“Did you bring your men?” John asked. “Yes, a half dozen. They ain’t but

six er.”

“What’s up?”

“Hell’s afloat and the river’s a risin!”

“Well?”

“Them skunks comin’. Our fellers are lyin’ out in the woods at the

spring where we met you the last time.”

John leaped to his feet with a sudden resolution.

“I’ll join you at eight o’clock to-night and we’ll give the gentlemen

from the hills an unexpected reception.” He seized his hat and closed

his office. As Dan turned to go he gave the low quick order:

“Gags and ropes for six. Lay low and don’t let anybody know you’re in

town.”

“I understand,” said the mountaineer, with a grin.

“John hurried home, and found to his annoyance that Mrs. Wilson had gone

buggy riding with Billy and left the entire work of the house to Susie.

“I hate to put more responsibility on your beautiful young shoulders,

Miss Susie,” John said hurriedly, “but I must beg you to stop your work

and make me a regalia for a little parade to-night--you understand--will

you do it?”

“With pleasure,” was the smiling answer. “I’ll forgive Mama her idiotic

trip with Billy for this chance to serve you.” She looked tenderly into

John’s eyes.

Before sundown the costume was finished and fitted to the tall figure by

Susie’s swift and gentle hands and the last scrap of the cloth gathered

up and piled in her work-basket before the first boarder arrived. Supper

was an hour late, but Susie was singing at her work when Mrs. Wilson and

Billy returned after dark.

Nickaroshinski’s cottage was situated on the edge of a deep forest two

miles out of town. It was a well-known fact that the old Jew walked to

and from his store every morning and evening alone. And it was popularly

believed that he hoarded his money under the floor of his bedroom.

Had any other man than Dan Wiley reported to John Graham such a

projected raid, it would have been beyond his belief. The old Jew was

on good terms with everybody. A refugee from Poland, his instinctive

sympathies had always been with the oppressed people of the South, and

to their cause he had faithfully given what influence he possessed.

The idea of such an atrocity by men wearing the uniform of his Klan

roused John to the highest pitch of indignation. He was determined to

make an example of these scoundrels that would not be forgotten.

The stars were shining brightly when he started with his men to the old

Jew’s place.

It was with a queer consciousness of the irony of fate that he galloped

through the shadows to strike horsemen who were wearing the uniform of

the mysterious order he had helped to create. The wind freshened and

grew chill, heavy clouds obscuring the sky. The darkness became intense.

He carefully placed his men in positions to guard every approach to the

house, and walked to the door to warn the Jew of his danger and arrange

for the capture of the raiders.

A sudden crash and groan within told him only too plainly that the

scoundrels were already inside.

Gathering his men John closed in on the house. As he expected they had

put out no pickets, never dreaming that they would be molested. They

had bound Nickaroshinski, beaten him unmercifully and tortured him until

they had secured his money and, not satisfied, had begun to smash things

to pieces.

Looking through the window John saw that their costumes were exactly

like his own and that the six men had scattered through the house bent

on plundering every nook and corner. Knowing that it would be impossible

for them to distinguish their own men from his, he made at once his plan

to capture the crowd without a struggle. Stationing his own six men at

the front door, he took Dan Wiley and boldly entered the room where the

leader stood covering the Jew with his revolver.

Without a word they walked toward him in the dim light.

Merely glancing at them the leader growled: “Finish up and let’s get

away from here!”

“All right,” John answered coming closer, “I’m getting in a hurry

myself.”

Before he knew what they meant, Dan pounced on him and pinioned his arms

while John quickly covered his mouth and fixed the gag.

It was but the work of a moment to tie the wretch and pass him out the

door to the grim figures waiting. They repeated this performance in each

room until all but two had been taken. These two were together. John

suddenly blew his whistle giving the Klan signal “Follow me.” When they

entered the room two revolvers were suddenly thrust under their noses.

They surrendered without a struggle.

John quickly released the old man, bound his wounds, restored his money

and left with his prisoners.

Each of them were given forty lashes and the next morning when Steve

Hoyle woke he found six stripe-marked half-naked men gagged and bleeding

dangling by their arms from the limbs of the trees on his lawn. Around

the neck of each hung a placard: “A warning to the scoundrels who are

disgracing the uniform of the Ku Klux Klan in this county.”

CHAPTER X--THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK

STEVE HOYLE had cut down his men and hustled them out of town before

eight o’clock, but the news rapidly spread and had thrown the people

into a tremor of wonder as to the meaning of the events of the night.

Evidently there had been a clash of forces within the ranks of the

Invisible Empire. What did it mean?

Steve had lost no time in explaining to the desperadoes from the hills

what they wished to know, and they had left with deep muttered curses

against their former Commander-in-chief.

The outrage on Nickaroshinski had aroused the fiercest passions between

the friends of John Graham and Steve Hoyle. Excited groups stood on

every corner and it was with the utmost difficulty that John succeeded

finally in dispersing them without a clash.

At one o’clock Larkin called at the old Graham mansion and announced to

Aunt Julie Ann his desire to see the Judge.

“Ye can’t see ’im,” was her contemptuous answer.

Larkin had captured Isaac, but his influence had not reached his wife.

For any white man who stayed at a Negro’s house her contempt was beyond

words. That the house happened to be her husband’s only aggravated the

offence.

“I must see him,” urged Larkin.

“He’s in bed sick, I tell ye!”

“But you had’nt told me,” protested the Carpetbagger.

“Well I tells ye now. De Judge ain’t lif’ his head offen de piller

ter day. De ghosts wuz here agin las’ night--an’ you’d better be a

movin ‘fore Miss Stella find you here. She sick de dog on you.”

Larkin took a threatening step toward her and said in low tones:

“Shut your mouth, and tell the Judge I’m here to see him on important

business. I’m not going out of this house until I do see him. Tell him

so.”

Aunt Julie Ann turned muttering and slowly climbed the stairs to

Butler’s room.

In a moment the Judge came down, hastily dressed in a faded slouchy

dressing-gown and a pair of bedroom slippers.

“Is it possible,” exclaimed Larkin, “that you know nothing of what’s

happened here within the past twenty-four hours?”

“I’ve been sick in bed. Haven’t left the house,” was the nervous reply.

“Well, it’s time you knew at least what is going on in the house.”

The Judge shivered and glanced up into the galleries.

“What do you mean?” he feebly asked.

Larkin rapidly sketched to him the events which had thrown the town into

a ferment.

“But what I called for,” observed the Carpetbagger, “was to enquire,

as your political adviser, whether you really intend to permit your

daughter to receive here to-night this gang of masked cutthroats as your

guests?”

The Judge rose trembling.

“My daughter receive the Ku Klux Klan here to-night?” he gasped.

“She has invited them, and in spite of the excitement it is rumoured

that they will promptly appear in full costume at ten o’clock.”

“Impossible, Larkin, impossible! They won’t dare such a thing. Besides,

of course, my daughter will stop it.”

“How can she stop it? Her invitation was by their sign of the scarlet

bow. They have devised no signal to stop such a festival.”

“She must find a way at once,” cried the Judge excitedly, “otherwise we

must wire for troops.”

“It’s too late.”

“We’ll order a special if necessary. I’ll call my daughter at once.”

Larkin rose as if to go.

“Wait,” continued the Judge, “I wish you to be present.”

He summoned Maggie, sent for Stella, and picked up his mail lying on the

centre table, and opened it with fumbling nervous fingers while awaiting

his daughter’s appearance.

The Carpetbagger smiled contemptuously at his lack of good breeding, and

studied the room while the Judge read his letters.

“I see here some friend has written me a warning against the dangers of

such a meeting,” cried Butler, his beady eyes dancing with excitement.

“We must stop it, Larkin, we must stop it!”

Maggie slowly descended the stairs.

“Well, well, where’s your mistress?” spluttered the Judge.

“Miss Stella say she busy tryin’ on a dress an’ she can’t come now.”

Butler turned on Maggie with sudden fury.

“Go back, you little black imp of the devil, and tell her to come down

immediately! Immediately, I say!”

“Yassah! Yassah!” Maggie panted. She turned back up the stairs jumping

three steps at a time, and fell sprawling across the top landing. She

reached Stella’s room gasping for breath.

Stella turned leisurely from her mirror.

“What on earth’s the matter, Maggie?”

“De Jedge say ef you doan come dar dis minute he gwine ter come up here

and slap yo head off!”

“As bad as that, Maggie?”

“Yassam. He flung a big book at me an’ hit me right in the head jes case

I tell ’im what you say. Didn’t ye hear it?”

Stella continued deliberately curling the ringlets about the edges of

her raven hair.

“Go back and tell him I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Yassum. I spec he kill me dis time.”

Stella finished her hair, sat down by the window and read a novel for

ten minutes and then slowly descended the stairs.

The Judge sat slouching low in his chair, and Larkin rose with the

instinctive impulse of a gentleman on Stella’s appearance.

The girl stared coldly at her father, noted his dressing-gown, turned

hastily toward the stairs and began to ascend.

“Excuse me,” she said to him with pointed insolence, “I thought you were

waiting to receive me.”

“Look here, my child, I’ve no time for silly nonsense!” the Judge

exclaimed, adjusting the folds of his slouchy robe.

“When you have completed your toilet,” she said with a sneering little

smile, “I’ll come at once. Please let me know.”

“Stella!” sternly called her father.

The girl continued without turning her head and disappeared on the floor

above.

“A stickler for social forms, Larkin,” said the Judge petulantly,

rising.

“I see,” said the Carpetbagger with amusement. “I’ll have to humour her.

Wait for me. We must stop it.”

When at length the Judge returned and confronted Stella he was unnerved,

while she stood staring at him with a hard glitter in her great brown

eyes, complete mistress of every faculty she possessed.

“My child,” began Butler, “Larkin tells me that you have invited the Ku

Klux raiders to dance here to-night.”

“I have,” was the cool answer.

“But my dear, you should have consulted me.”

“You made me the mistress of this house; why should I consult you about

a harmless social gathering of my friends?”

“The Klan is a secret order of assassins and desperadoes.”

“Please father, don’t!” she interrupted. “Your politics disgust me.

These boys are of the best families in town.”

“How can you know this?” pleaded the Judge. “They come disguised. Not

one of them has ever made himself known.”

“Which makes the romance of such a visit all the deeper.”

“And its dangers all the greater, my child. Mr. Larkin has come to warn

me.”

“I agree with your father, Miss Stella,” said Larkin with a grave bow.

The girl tossed her head with contempt.

“And I have in my hand a letter of warning from an unknown friend,”

continued Butler.

“But you are not really afraid?” cried the girl with scorn. “I refuse to

believe my own father the contemptible coward your enemies have called

you.”

“Have you heard of the criminal outrages committed last night by those

masked raiders?”

“They do not interest me.”

“You must remember, my dear, that I have sworn to send these men to the

gallows.”

“I can’t help your political bluster. I refuse to sacrifice my social

career and insult my friends for your dirty politics.”

“And you can not see that the presence of these masked men in this house

would be a mortal insult to me?”

“Certainly not. A crowd of gay masqueraders who come to do me honour.”

“You must stop it, my child.”

“It is impossible now. My friends are getting ready. I’ve hired a band.”

“You refuse to respect my wishes?”

“I refuse to make a fool of myself!”

“Come, my dear, you must be reasonable. I know I’ve spoiled you. I’ve

loved you too well. I’ve indulged every whim of your heart and allowed

you to rule me, but you can’t do this absurd and dangerous thing.

You forget that you are not only making a fool of me but that you are

putting my life in jeopardy.”

“I’ll assume the responsibility!” she broke in, drawing herself up with

pride. “If you receive the slightest insult or a hair of your head is

harmed I’ll give my life to avenge it.”

“You persist?” asked her father with a scowl. “I do,” flashed the

answer.

The Judge rose, hesitated a moment and then said with stern

determination:

“Then for the first time in my life, I forbid you a thing on which you

have set your heart. These masked men shall not enter my house!”

Stella’s eyes flashed fire.

“They shall come!” she cried.

“Larkin,” said the Judge, turning to the Carpetbagger, “I shall have

to ask you to go to the telegraph office and order the troops here on a

special. Ask them to protect me to-night from these assassins.”

Stella’s figure suddenly stiffened with incontrollable rage. She

clenched her fists and sprang in front of her father screaming.

“Don’t you dare insult me by applying such epithets to my friends! If

you are my father, you are a poltroon and a coward!”

“Stella, my darling!” gasped the Judge.

“Don’t you call me darling! Don’t you dare to speak to me again! I’ll

leave this house and blot your very name from my memory!”

Butler staggered back in dumb amazement and Larkin watched with a

curious smile playing about the corners of his piercing eyes.

Stella stamped her foot, turned, and bounded up the stairs and into her

room, slammed the door and began to scream.

The Judge stood for a moment in speechless horror. He had never crossed

her imperious will before and he was utterly unprepared for her mad

outburst. He loved her with all the tenderness of which his low nature

was capable, and had never seen a woman in hysterics. He had therefore

no standard by which to measure how much of pure devil and how much of

real suffering were mingled in her cries. Each piercing scream tore his

heart. He turned helplessly to Larkin and asked: “What shall I do?”

“Excuse me Judge, I can’t advise you in such a matter,” the Carpetbagger

replied. “But I think you’ll have to summon a doctor.”

“My God, is she in danger?” he asked, in a stupor of pain. “I’ll go up

and see.”

He shuffled up the stairs as quickly as possible, and hurried into her

room without knocking.

Stella sprang from the bed where she lay moaning, laughing and crying,

and flew at him, stamping and screaming:

“Don’t you come near me. Don’t you touch me! Don’t you speak to me! Get

out of this room!”

“But my dear,” stammered the Judge.

“Get out of this room--get out of this room! or I’ll jump out of that

window and kill myself!” She seized him by the arm, hustled and pushed

him out of the door, slammed and locked it. Again she threw herself on

the bed and burst into strangling groans.

The Judge retreated to the hall below, his eyes filled with tears, his

heart sick with terror. He dropped into a seat, covered his face with

his hands and sat for a moment in stupid pain.

Maggie suddenly plunged down the stairs yelling:

“Goddermighty, ye better run fur de doctor quick--Miss Stella dying! She

done choke ter death!”

“I’ll bring the doctor,” said Larkin, rising quickly.

“Run and bring Aunt Julie Ann!” whispered the Judge to Maggie.

The maid met Aunt Julie Ann who had heard the commotion and the two

hurried back to Stella’s room.

When the doctor came she refused to see him, and he left in a rage. The

Judge begged Larkin to stay until he could see his daughter.

An hour later, propped up in bed with Maggie rubbing one hand and Aunt

Julie Ann the other, she permitted her father to enter and receive her

pardon. The Judge knelt by the bedside, kissed her hand and wet it with

tears. His surrender was abject. He sent Larkin away and promised to be

present at the ball and treat the whole thing as a schoolboys’ frolic.

And then she smiled and kissed him.

“If I’m only strong enough to dress by ten o’clock!” she cried,

laughing.

“Try to eat something, dear,” urged her father.

She promised and asked Aunt Julie Ann to send her a little soup. She got

the soup and with it a substantial meal.

Still and catlike, Maggie watched her eat it down to the last crumb with

quiet enjoyment. When the black maid picked up the tray she walled her

eyes first at the empty dishes and then at her wonderful little mistress

and softly giggled.

CHAPTER XI--THROUGH THE SECRET PANEL

AS THE hour approached for the masqueraders to appear at the Judge’s

John Graham was drawn to the spot by an irresistible impulse. He stood

in the shadows of the trees on the sidewalk and watched the little

squadron of white and scarlet horsemen wheel into the gate past Isaac’s

cottage, and gallop swiftly up to the front door of the old mansion.

They had scarcely passed when Isaac suddenly stepped from the shrubbery

through the open gateway and ran into him.

The Apostle gasped in terror:

“De Lawd, marse John, I thought you wuz one er dem ghostes--‘scuse me,

sah, I’se er gettin’ away from here!”

John made no reply, merely watching him until he disappeared.

Again he turned toward the house. Every window was gleaming with light.

The subdued strains of a string band came stealing through the trailing

roses on the porch, and he fancied he could catch the odour of the

flowers in their sweet notes. Scarcely knowing what he did, he strolled

into the lawn and sank on a rustic bench with a groan. He could hear the

gay banter of the masqueraders and the peals of girlish laughter with

which their tomfoolery was being received.

A mocking bird began singing in the tree above him, roused by the music

of the band. Far off in the corner of the lawn in the clump of holly and

cedars at the entrance of the vault a whippoorwill was making the ravine

ring with the weird notes of his ghost-like call. The moon flooded the

scene with silvery splendour. Crushed with a sense of loneliness and

failure, he felt to-night that he would give all the wealth and honours

of the earth for one touch of the hand of the girl whose laughter

lingered and echoed in his heart. And again the feeling of impending

disaster overwhelmed him.

“Of course it’s nonsense!” he kept repeating to himself. “The disaster

is within. I’m merely a wounded animal caught in a trap, bleeding and

dying of thirst, and no one knows or cares, and I can’t cry for help.”

He tried to rise and go. But something held him in a silent spell to

the spot. He sat dreaming out each movement of the gay drama in progress

within.

Stella had welcomed her white-robed guests without the aid of a servant.

No Negro could be hired for love or money to approach one of these

ghostly figures. Maggie had hidden in the closet in her mistress’ room

and Aunt Julie Ann had barred herself inside the kitchen and refused to

answer a call.

In spite of these little annoyances the beautiful young mistress of the

Graham house, resplendent in her ball dress costume, was in her gayest

mood.

When the shrill whistles rang their summons at the door, she hastened to

greet her mysterious guests.

“And your name, Sir Knight?” she asked the leader with bantering

laughter.

“We are Ghouls! And come from beyond the river Styx, my lady!” solemnly

answered the tall white figure.

“Welcome shades of Darkness, welcome back to the world of joy and light,

song and dance, life and love!” Stella cried, extending her hand.

When they had tied their horses to the posts beside the wide driveway

they slowly entered single file into the great hall. Stella, assisted by

Susie Wilson, who had become her fast friend, greeted each of them with

words of gay welcome.

They were dressed in the regulation raider’s costume of the Klan. The

white flowing ulsterlike robe came within three inches of the floor.

A scarlet belt circled the waist, from either side of which hung heavy

revolvers in leather holsters. A dagger was attached to the centre of

the belt, and the scarlet-lined white cape thrown back on the shoulders

revealed their militant trappings with startling distinctness. On each

breast was wrought the emblem of the Invisible Empire, the scarlet

circle, and in its centre a white cross. Spiked helmets of white cloth

with flowing masks reached to the cape on each shoulder, completely

covering the head and face. With red gauntlets to complete their

costume, the disguise was absolute. The only visible part of the body

was the eye, gleaming with a strange steady supernatural brilliance

through the holes cut in the mask. It was a curious fact that all eyes

looked alike in the shadows of these trappings at night. They were

simply flashing points of living light with all traces of colour lost in

the shadows.

In spite of the fact that the girls felt they had nothing to fear from

the white figures, it was with a tremor of excitement they each greeted

the mysterious partners of their dance.

Stella left them talking romantic nonsense of knights and tournaments,

ghouls and ghosts in the hall and ran up to her father’s room.

“Oh! Papa,” she cried with childish glee. “It’s such fun! They’re all

here. You will come down and join the party as you promised?”

“Yes, yes, dear, I’ll come, presently,” said the Judge with evident

dread.

Stella slipped her beautiful bare arm around his neck and her cheek

rested against his, while the soft little fingers found his hand.

“I’m awfully sorry I was so ugly to-day,” she said gently. “But I

couldn’t help it. I didn’t know I had such a temper. I must have gotten

it from you Dad.”

“It’s all right, my darling, if you’ll never say such bitter things to

me again--will you?” he asked tenderly, tears filling his eyes.

“No, I’ll be good now, if you’ll forgive me?”

Her father answered with a kiss. “You see, you’re all I have in the

world, my little girlie. I’m not as strong as I used to be. I don’t

think I’m going to live long.”

“Rubbish! you’ve just got the blues. Shake them off and be young again

to-night. Imagine you are a boy here with mother the sweetheart you’re

trying to steal from the proud rich people who hate you--come, come!”

The Judge smiled in spite of himself. Her mood was contagious. He

stroked her hand gently.

“I’ll be down right away. Run on and have a good time.”

“All right, I’ll start the first dance and you’ll be there by the time

it’s over and shake hands with your enemies. It will be so jolly!”

Throwing him a kiss she returned to the hall below and led her guests

into the big double parlours which had been fitted up for dancing. The

French windows, opening as doors on the porches, were raised, and the

band stationed outside near one of them.

When the dance had begun the Judge, dressed in his usual broadcloth

frock coat which hung in slouching lines from his drooping shoulders,

slowly descended the stairs and stood embarrassed and hesitating in the

hall a moment, and sat down by the centre table.

A masquerader came in from the ball room for the fan his partner had

left, and so soft was his footfall the Judge did not hear or see him

until the tall white figure suddenly loomed above him to pick up the

fan.

The apparition was so startling the Judge’s nerves collapsed. He leaped

to his feet with an inarticulate cry of terror, overturning his chair

and started to bolt for the door.

The masquerader smothered a laugh and said:

“I beg your pardon, I only wanted the fan.” Butler stammered:

“Ah--I--must have been dreaming--you--startled me!”

He watched the white figure disappear, mopped the perspiration from

his brow, called Aunt Julie Ann and ordered her to bring him a drink of

whiskey. She refused to stir at first, but he threatened to discharge

her, and she obeyed.

When the Judge raised the glass to his lips his hand trembled so

violently that he spilled some of the liquor on his clothes. He gulped

it down and glanced nervously about the hall.

He placed the glass back on the tray and Aunt Julie Ann, watching the

parlour-door like a hawk, started back to the kitchen on a run.

“Wait a moment,” cried the Judge, shuffling to his feet.

“I ain’t gwine stay in here wid dem things in de house,” she answered,

halting timidly in the shadows of the door leading into the dining-room.

Butler walked to her side and said:

“Tell Miss Stella I’m not feeling well--I’m going to bed.”

He hesitated a moment. “You’ve said nothing to any one about this ghost

business?”

“Hush, man, hush! Don’t talk about dat now!” she whispered. “I tole dat

ole whiteheaded Larkin--dat’s all.”

“Well, I want to warn you, don’t mention it to another living soul. I’m

beginning to suspect that we’ve been seeing old Major Graham himself!”

“De Lawd er mussy, man, how he bin gittin’ in de house wid all de doors

and windows locked an’ bolted?”

“That’s a mystery I can’t fathom.”

“No, ner nobody else. Hit’s his sperit I tells ye.”

While they were talking thus in the alcove the oak panel under the

stairs was softly opened and closed; old Major Graham, dressed with

scrupulous care, thin and pale as a corpse, yet erect and dignified,

walked slowly across the hall to the foot of the stairs. His lips were

muttering inarticulate sounds and his wide staring eyes had the far-off

look of the dreamer who lives, breathes and moves, yet sees nothing.

Butler’s back was to the Major, and Aunt Julie Ann, hearing the

footsteps, was first to see him. She staggered against the wall and

gasped:

“God, save us, dar he is now!”

Butler glanced over his shoulder and backed against the huge figure of

the cook, trembling.

“Look--look!” he whispered. “It is old Graham. Watch his thin bony

fingers grip the rail as he climbs the steps!”

“Hit’s his livin’ ghost I tell ye!” persisted Aunt Julie Ann. “He’ll

walk right out on de roof an’ step off’n de house des like he does every

night--you won’t see’ ’im again.”

“Get some more whiskey!” said the Judge. “I’ll go with you”--he added,

following her into the dining room, mopping the perspiration from his

brow.

“I’ll go up there in a minute and find out the truth!”

“Better keep outen dat attic I tells ye. Dey say dat de ghosts er de

livin’ is wuss dan de dead.” They had scarcely passed from the hall when

the oak panel again opened and a white masked figure peered through, and

quickly entered.

The dress was an exact duplicate of the masqueraders down to its

minutest details, and only the closest observer would have noted the

awkward way in which the figure moved as though not in the habit of

walking in his disguise.

He quickly glanced about the hall, listened a moment to the sounds of

revelry in the ballroom, closed the door of the small hall leading into

it, reopened the panel and signalled.

In rapid succession eight more silent figures filed through the panel

door. The leader whispered to his followers:

“He’s in the dining room. Guard every entrance now but that.”

In a moment a masked man stood guard at each door and the leader lowered

the lamp on the table until only the dim outlines of the forms could

be seen, and stepped back himself into the shadows of the alcove by the

dining room door.

Aunt Julie Ann returned to the kitchen, and the Judge, afraid to go

upstairs, came back into the hall to enter the ballroom as he promised

Stella.. As he passed through the door of the dining room the shrouded

figure standing in the alcove quickly followed, cutting off this

retreat.

The Judge stopped, blinked his eyes around the dim hall and muttered:

“Why, why, the lamp’s gone out!” He quickly crossed the space to the

table and extended his hand to turn up the lamp.

The figure behind him seized his arm and a guttural voice spoke through

the mask:

“There’s light enough for our work, Judge.”

Butler staggered back in terror and glanced about him at the dim

spectres closing around the table. With an effort he pulled himself

together and stammered:

“Why, of course, boys. I see! I see! You’re going to initiate me! give

me the third degree first--I see--a good joke!”

“You’ll find it a serious joke before you’re through,” replied the

leader, gripping his dagger.

The Judge could see the movement of his hand as he slowly drew the

knife from its sheath, the blade glistening for an instant in the dim

lamplight, but he still thought the boys were playing a prank on him.

“Well, gentlemen, have your fun!” he cried with forced gaiety, “Have

your way, I’m at your service. What is the penalty I must pay to-night

for my many sins against the Klan?”

“The penalty is your life,” said the mask with sullen menace in his

tones, stepping closer, “unless you agree to leave this state to-morrow

and never enter it again--will you go?”

“So bad as that?” The Judge forced a laugh. “What else?”

“You are not fooling with boys now!” sullenly said the towering white

form. “Give me your answer, you d------d old sneaking coward! Will you

go or do you prefer to die?”

Butler, trembling now with mingled terror and rage, cried angrily:

“Gentlemen, your joke is going too far!”

“It’ll go farther,” was the quick reply, as the white figures closed in

threateningly and the foremost man moved as if to raise his hand.

“Enough of this! Get out of my house!” Butler suddenly shouted,

snatching the mask from the leader’s head by a quick unexpected display

of courage. A cry of horror and surprise leaped from his lips. The knife

flashed, and was buried in his heart. He reeled, staggered, clutched a

chair and sank with a groan to a sitting posture. His long awkward arms

drooped and his head sank slowly on his breast.

The leader, who had quickly replaced his helmet, bent over him a moment,

sheathed his knife and said:

“A good stroke--all right--quick now--open the doors and follow me.”

The guard at the door leading into the ballroom opened it gently and

the sweet strains of the music rang through the hall with startling

distinctness, as the white-masked figures slowly disappeared through the

panel under the stairs.

Aunt Julie Ann who had heard the Judge’s cry and the sudden noise

entered trembling.

“Name er God what’s dis!” she cried. “De light gone out! De ghost done

dat!”

She turned up the lamp and saw the Judge sitting dead in the chair, the

scarlet stain on his clean ruffled shirt holding her for a moment in

speechless horror.

Screaming at last, she rushed to the ballroom door and shouted:

“De Lawd hab mussy! De ghost done kill de Judge--Stab ’im fro de heart!”

The music stopped with a crash and the crowd rushed into the hall.

[Illustration: 0157]

Stella stared at the lifeless form, her beautiful face whiter than

the dead, turned to the masqueraders huddled in a group, drew herself

proudly erect, pointed to the door and said:

“Go!”

Silently and quickly they left, and as the last beat of their horses’

hoofs died away in the distance she lifted her face from her father’s

hand which she had covered with kisses, and groaned:

“Forgive me--forgive me! I have but one aim in life now--God give me

strength!”

BOOK II--A WOMAN’S REVENGE

CHAPTER I--STELLA’S RESOLUTION

THE murder of Judge Butler created a profound sensation both in the

state and the nation. The Northern press held the Ku Klux Klan guilty of

this atrocious crime without question, and it was the last straw needed

to start an avalanche of hostile legislation in Congress against the

entire South.

The famous Conspiracy Act was rushed through both houses of the National

Legislature and signed by the President. It made membership in the

secret order known as the Ku Klux Klan, or Invisible Empire, a felony,

and provided for the trial of its members on the charge of treason,

conspiracy and murder. The President was authorised to suspend the

writ of _habeas corpus_ and proclaim martial law in any county of the

Southern States, and use the army and navy to enforce his authority.

The Attorney General promptly placed the county of Independence under

military government, stationed two regiments of troops within its

borders, and set to work with scores of detectives to find the guilty

man.

Two months passed without the slightest progress. Five thousand dollars

reward was offered by the national authorities and a similar sum by the

state. Not a trace of the man responsible for the deed could be found,

though a price of ten thousand dollars was set thus on his head. A

number of arrests had been made, but the evidence produced was of so

flimsy a character that in each instance the prisoner could not be held.

The longer the case was probed, the deeper became its insoluble aspects.

The “Butler Murder Mystery,” as it was popularly known, provoked the

widest public discussion, both in the state and national press, yet no

explanation from any quarter could be found.

The effects of the crime on the Ku Klux raiders was immediate. Not

a trace of their existence was left. The enormity of the tragedy had

evidently sobered the dare-devils who had found amusement or personal

profit in its activities. It now became the fashion to denounce the Klan

and demand its extermination.

As the order had never had a spokesman, it had no defender. The demand

for its suppression was universal. Yet no traitor had appeared among its

ranks. The deepest curses of a race were reserved for the white lip that

should betray its members. Whatever the leaders of public opinion might

say, the masses of the people knew the necessity which had called

this dreaded order into existence--the black threat of Negro dominion.

Thousands of women and children knew its secrets and held them

inviolate.

On Stella Butler the death of her father had wrought a deep and

remarkable change. The fun-loving, imperious, self-willed, spoiled child

had suddenly become a serious woman. She had given every hour of her

time assisting the authorities in their search for the murderer and had

followed every possible clue with breathless hope.

Two forces had driven her into a morbid interest in the crime, pride and

remorse. In mere laughing banter she had promised her father if a single

insult should be offered him, or a hair of his head harmed, she

would give her life to avenge the deed. She had not dreamed of such a

possibility. But now that the impossible had happened, she would make

good her word to the dead. And she would make it good, not only because

she had promised and her heart was sick with remorse for the part she

had unconsciously played in the tragedy, but for a deeper personal

reason--the consciousness of the insult to her pride which the crime had

offered. The assassin had dared to strike her father dead in her home,

in her very presence.

Had the knife sought her own heart she would have felt less deeply the

wound. Somewhere even by her side there stood amid the shadows of life

a being who could thus insult her by ignoring her very existence! She

resolved to make that man feel her power by paying the penalty with his

own life. An element of pitiless cruelty in her character found for the

first time its expression in a passionate thirst for the blood of this

criminal.

She had seen every effort to penetrate the mystery fail with increasing

inward rage. Larkin, who had charge of the Judge’s campaign, had been

aggressive and untiring for two weeks and then had given up and returned

to his duties as Chairman of the State Executive Committee.

The Attorney General announced his departure for Washington and ordered

the withdrawal of the troops and detectives.

Stella hastened to send her burning protest against his action. General

Champion, who had been deeply moved by her beauty and evident suffering,

called personally at the old Graham mansion for an interview. He

received her indignant protests with the gravest courtesy.

“Please don’t tell me, General,” she began bitterly, “that my father’s

death is an apparently insoluble mystery. I am sick, sick, sick of

hearing such rubbish! Eight weeks ago he was murdered in cold blood in

this hall on the very spot where you are now sitting. It was not done by

ghosts, it was not an accident, it was done by a living man. I refuse

to recognise in it an act of Providence. I will not wear an emblem

of mourning as long as this man breathes on earth. I have sworn it My

father was in the service of his country attempting to enforce its laws.

I have the right to demand that a rich and powerful government avenge

his death. It is incredible that the coward who did this crime can not

be caught and punished.”

“Upon the other hand, my dear child,” said the General, “I assure you

that the apprehension of this criminal is one of the most difficult

tasks ever assigned the Department of Justice.”

“And why, pray?”

“Because in this climate the Invisible Empire is yet stronger than the

visible----”

“You believe then that the Klan committed the deed?” she asked

“As sure of it as that I live. If we were dealing with the ordinary

criminal, it would be easy. We are dealing with larger problems. Every

clue we have found has proven false for this reason. The man really

responsible stands at our elbow did we but know the truth.”

“What do you mean?” Stella asked with sudden interest.

“That your father’s death was ordered by an inner circle of the

Invisible Empire. He was probably executed by an individual who did

not even know his name. The occasion of the masquerade ball was simply

utilised for the purpose. Unless we know the name of the Chief of the

Klan in this state no progress can be made. This man has the power of

life and death over his men. No such deed could have been committed

without his order.”

“And you are going to give up the search?” was the eager question.

“For the present yes. It is a waste of time.”

“And you have formed no idea as to who this Chief may be?” asked the big

brown eyes, flashing with a new purpose.

“I haven’t a scrap of evidence that can be used in an English-speaking

court of justice--but I am morally certain that I know the man.”

“And if you knew him by his own confession?”

“I could send him to the gallows within thirty days.”

“The man you suspect?”

“John Graham!”

Stella sprang to her feet, her face white with an emotion which stopped

for a moment her very heart-beat.

“Within a month I’ll tell you the truth”--she said with laboured breath.

“Can you do it?”

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt!” was her firm answer.

The General seized her hand as he took his leave.

“If you do, my child, you will destroy an empire mightier than the

law of the land. I’ll place the entire resources of the Department of

Justice at your command.”

Stella’s brown eyes rested on her own beautiful reflection in the mirror

as she slowly said:

“Thank you, General, I have at present all the weapons I shall need.”