"Did you have it at the camp-meeting?"
"No, nor any other."
"You are not obliged to criminate yourself," said the coroner again; "but didn't you see Lockwood killed?"
"No," said Tom. "It's all a lie that Dave Sovine swore to, and he knows it. I wasn't on that part of the ground."
"Hang him!" interjected Hogan.
"The bah-y is awful plucky, upon me sowl," said Magill, who was standing on a plow-beam in order to see over the heads of the crowd. "It would be a pity to hang a man of such good stuff."
"The bare-faced villain!" growled the man next to him, and the unfavorable impression evidently had sway with the crowd. When people have once made up their mind as to how a thing has happened, they do not like to have their fixed notions disturbed. Tom's heart sank; he could see that the chance for his getting back to the jail alive was growing smaller. Hiram Mason had attached himself to Tom and the sheriff, and had elbowed his way to the front in their wake; the people, supposing that he had some official function, made way for him. He now got the ear of the sheriff.
"If you don't get Tom away at once he'll be lynched," he said.
"I know it; but I don't know what to do," said Plunkett. "If I make any move, I'll fetch the crowd down on Tom."
"Get him down into the cow-stable under the barn, and let Markham take him off. You stay here and they won't suspect that he's gone."