When he awoke the next morning in his rude bed in the loft, he became aware that there were a number of men in the room below, and he could gather that they were talking about him. He dressed quickly and came down-stairs. The first thing he noticed was that the settler who had refused him lodging the night before was the centre of the group, the next that they had taken possession of his rifle. This settler had roused the "reggilators," and they had crossed the creek in a flat-boat some miles below and come up the stream determined to capture this young horse-thief. It is a singular tribute to the value of the horse that among barbarous or half-civilized peoples horse-stealing is accounted an offense more atrocious than homicide. In such a community to steal a man's horse is the grandest of larcenies—it is to rob him of the stepping-stone to civilization.
For such philosophical reflections as this last, however, Morton had no time. He was in the hands of an indignant crowd, some of whom had lost horses and other property from the depredations of the famous band of Micajah Harp, and all of whom were bent on exacting the forfeit from this indifferently dressed young man who rode a horse altogether too good for him.
Morton was conducted three miles down the river to a log tavern, that being a public and appropriate place for the rendering of the decisions of Judge Lynch, and affording, moreover, the convenient refreshments of whiskey and tobacco to those who might become exhausted in their arduous labors on behalf of public justice. There was no formal trial. The evidence was given in in a disjointed and spontaneous fashion; the jury was composed of the whole crowd, and what the Quakers call the "sense of the meeting" was gathered from the general outcry. Educated in Indian wars and having been left at first without any courts or forms of justice, the settlers had come to believe their own expeditious modes of dealing with the enemies of peace and order much superior to the prolix method of the lawyers and judges.
And as for Morton, nothing could be much clearer than that he was one of the gang. The settler who had refused him a lodging first spoke:
"You see, I seed in three winks," he began, "that that feller didn't own the hoss. He looked kinder sheepish. Well, I poked a few questions at him and I reckon I am the beatin'est man to ax questions in this neck of timber. I axed him whar he come from, and he let it out that he'd rid more'n fifty miles. And I kinder blazed away at praisin' his hoss tell I got him off his guard, and then, unbeknownst to him, I treed him suddently. I jest axed him ef the hoss was his'n and he hemmed and hawed and says, says he: 'Well, not exactly mine.' Then I tole him to putt out."
"Did he tell you the mar wuzn't adzackly his'n?" put in the youth whose unwilling hospitality Morton had enjoyed.
"Yes."
"Well, then, he lied one time or nuther, that's sartain shore. He tole me she wuz. And when I axed him whar he was agoin', he tole me he didn' know. I suspicioned him then, and I tole him to clar out; and he wouldn'. Well, I wuz agoin' to git down my gun and blow his brains out; but marm got skeered and didn' want me to, and I 'lowed it was better to let him stay, and I 'low'd you fellers mout maybe come over and cotch him, or liker'n not some feller'd come along and inquire arter that air mar. Then he ups and says ef the ole woman don' give him sompin' to eat she'd ketch it from Micajah Harp's band. He said as how he was a member of that gang. An' he said he hadn't had nothin' to eat sence the night before, havin' rid fer twenty-four hours."
"I didn't say——" began Morton.
"Shet up your mouth tell I'm done. Haint you got no manners? I tole him as how I didn't keer three continental derns* fer his whole band weth Micajah Harp throw'd onto the top, but the ole woman wuz kinder sorter afeared to find she'd cotch a rale hoss-thief and she gin him a little sompin' to eat. And he did gobble it, I tell you!"