“And I’ll do mine,” she answered very quietly.
With a little murmur, he took her hand again; and this time he would not let it go.
“If we win,” he said with grim tenderness, “I might not be willing to wait until I make my strike. I might claim my reward at once, Jeanne; and it will be—you!” He raised the hand to his lips and kissed it.
“For success!”
CHAPTER III. LAW AND ORDER COME TO RAMAPO.
One morning the riotous, reckless, feverish town of Ramapo awoke to a new excitement. On a rude bulletin-board in front of the post-office, appeared a poster in large, clear letters. No one knew how it had come there. The post-office force had discovered it when “he” arrived to open up for the day.
Its message was brief and to the point:
To the People of Ramapo:
Law and Order are hereby declared in force. All men are warned that henceforth lawlessness will be met with swift punishment. Serious offenses will merit death. J.
Though the letters in all the rest of the notice were black, the “J” at the end was in bright-red. It was large, and set squarely in the center of the sheet. There was a quiet power in the single red character, an absence of bluster in the wording, that did not fail to have their effect. A large crowd quickly gathered. Men read the poster with serious faces, and questions flew thick and fast as to its origin and meaning. No one knew. No one could find out. Some openly scoffed. But the large J remained there, looking out at the crowd with a sort of calm and confident power!
Rumors sped from mouth to mouth and were expanded at every exchange. A vague uneasiness, a feeling that there was something in the wind and that the warning boded new and sinister experiences for the town, served for a time to throw a damper on its reckless gaiety.