“Well, here you are at last,” Garner cried, throwing down his paper. “If I hadn't had something to read I'd have been asleep. I don't know any more than a rabbit what you intend to propose, but whatever it is, we are late enough about it.”
Hurriedly Carson explained the cause of his delay and took the chair which the tinner, with the air of a proud inferior, was pushing towards him. As he sat down and the lamplight fell athwart his careworn face, the group was overwhelmed with sympathy and a strange, far-reaching respect they could hardly understand. To-night they were, more than usual, under the spell of that inner force which had bound them one and all to him and which, they felt, nothing but dishonor could break. And yet there they sat so grimly banded together against him that he felt it in their very attitudes.
“The truth is”--Garner broke the awkward pause--“we presume you got us together to-night to offer open opposition--in case, of course, that the mob means harm to your client. That seems the only thing a body of men can do. But, my dear boy, there are two sides to this question. For reasons of your own, chief among which is a most beautiful principle to see the humblest stamp of man get justice--for these reasons you call on your friends to stand to you, and they will stand, I reckon, to the end, but it's for you, Carson, to act reasonably and think as readily of the interests of all of us as for those of the unfortunate prisoner. To meet that mob by opposition to-night would--well, ask Pole Baker for the latest news. When you have heard what he knows to be true, I am sure you will see the utter futility of any movement whatsoever.”
All eyes were now turned on the gaunt mountaineer, who was sitting on an inverted nail keg whittling to a fine point a bit of wood which now and then he thrust automatically between his white front teeth.
“Well, Carson,” he began, in drawling tones, “I lowed you-uns would want to know just how the land lays, and as I had a sort of underground way of gettin' at first-hand facts, I raked in all the information I could an' come on to town. I'd heard about how low your mother was, an' easy upset by excitement, an' so I didn't go up to your house. I met Keith, an' he told me I could see you at this meetin', an' so I waited. Carson, the jig is certainly up with that coon. No power under high heaven could save his neck. The report that was circulated this morning, was deliberately sent out to throw the authorities off their guard. Only about thirty men are still on Sam Dudlow's trail--the rest, hundreds and hundreds, in bunches an' factions, each faction totin' a flag to show whar they hail from, an' all dressed in white sheets, is headed this way.”