"It's the law!" he reiterated.
"The law be damned!" cried Calvin Blount. "Let me up! Let me at him! Him—to come around here to arrest me-that damned nigger! You, Bill!" he called out, raising his voice. "Throw him off my place. Kill him!" He struggled furiously with Eddring in his effort to gain the door.
The new sheriff of Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's side, also, Jack, and between them they laid hold of the sheriff of the county and pushed him out of the house and across the lawn, administering meanwhile to his body repeated deliberate and energetic kicks, and thus enthusiastically propelling him into the very presence of his waiting posse, who raised never a hand to resent these indignities to one who had been their chosen representative for the advancement of their race.
"I'll see 'bout dis yer, I will!" cried the sheriff, as at last he got clear and took refuge in the boat which lay waiting at the edge of the lawn. "I'll have you-all up for 'sistin' a officah, dat's whut I will."
"'Sistin' a officah! Who! You?" said Bill. The scorn in his voice was infinite. "Say, you low-down scoun'rel, you say very much mo' an' I'll blow yoh head off. You're on our lan', does you know dat? Now you git off, right soon."
The officer of the law retreated as far as he could into the boat.
"You thought Cunnel Blount was all 'lone in bed, too weak to move,
didn't you?" resumed Bill. "Why, blame you, you couldn't 'rest
Colonel Calvin Blount, not if he was daid! Go 'long dah, now!"
Mose Taylor, the grim jest, the sardonic answer of the whites of Tullahoma County to those who deal fluently with questions of which they know but little, was fain to take Bill's sincere advice. Behind the shelter of the first clump of trees, he folded his arms into a posture as near resembling that of Napoleon as he could assume. He frowned heavily. "Huh!" said he savagely, looking from one to another of the crew who made his "posse." "Huh!" he said again, and yet again, "Huh!" A cloud sat on his soul. It seemed to him that persons like himself, earnestly engaged in settling the race problem, ought not to have such difficulties cast in their way.
Meantime, in the house, Eddring still confronted the rage of Colonel
Blount.
"You," panted Blount. "You! I thought you were one of us."
"I am, I am!" cried Eddring. "I was with you in what you did. I tried to get to you. It had to be done. But somewhere, Cal, we must stop. We've got to pull up. We can't fight lawlessness with worse lawlessness. We must begin with the law."