"Therefore, this is to warn all and singular the persons who have made or are now making incendiary propositions and threats, and all who are banded together in secret political associations to forthwith cease their activity. And let this warning be regarded as an order, the violation of which will be followed by vengeance swift and sure. The White Riders are abroad.
"Thrice endorsed by the Venerable, the Grand Cyclops, in behalf of the all-powerful Klan. (. (. (. K. K. K. .) .) .)"
Now, if this document had been in writing, it might have passed for a joke, but it was printed, and this fact, together with its grave and formal style, gave it the dignity and importance of a genuine proclamation from a real but an unseen and unknown authority. It had the advantage of mystery, and there are few minds on which the mysterious fails to have a real influence. In addition to this, the spectacular performance at the Rev. Jeremiah's church the night before gave substance to the proclamation. That event was well calculated to awe the superstitious and frighten the timid.
The White Riders had disappeared as mysteriously as they came. Only one person was known to have seen them after they had left the church—it was several days before the Rev. Jeremiah could be induced to relate his experience—and that person was Mr. Sanders. What he claimed to have witnessed was even more alarming than the brief episode that occurred at the Rev. Jeremiah's church. Mr. Sanders was called on to repeat the story many times during the next few weeks, but it was observed by a few of the more thoughtful that he described what he had seen with greater freedom and vividness when there was a negro within hearing. His narrative was something like this:
"Gus Tidwell sent arter me to go look at his sick hoss, an' I went an' doctored him the best I know'd how, an' then started home ag'in. I had but one thought on my mind; Gus had offered to pay me for my trouble sech as it was, an' I was tryin' for to figger out in my mind what in the name of goodness had come over Gus. I come mighty nigh whirlin' roun' in my tracks, an' walkin' all the way back jest to see ef he didn't need a little physic. He was cold sober at the time, an' all of a sudden, when he seed that I had fetched his hoss through a mighty bad case of the mollygrubs, he says to me, 'Mr. Sanders,' says he, 'you've saved me a mighty fine hoss, an' I want to pay you for it. You've had mighty hard work; what is it all wuth?' 'Gus,' says I, 'jest gi' me a drink of cold water for to keep me from faintin', an' we'll say no more about it.'
"Well, I didn't turn back, though I was much of a mind to. I mosied along wondering what had come over Gus. I had got as fur on my way home as the big 'simmon tree—you-all know whar that is—when all of a sudden, I felt the wind a-risin'. It puffed in my face, an' felt warm, sorter like when the wind blows down the chimbley in the winter time. Then I heard a purrin' sound, an' I looked up, an' right at me was a gang of white hosses an' riders. They was right on me before I seed 'em, an' I couldn't 'a' got out'n the'r way ef I'd 'a' had the wings of a hummin'-bird. So I jest ketched my breath, an' bowed my head, an' tried to say, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' I couldn't think of the rest, an' it wouldn't 'a' done no good nohow. I cast my eye aroun', findin' that I wasn't trompled, an' the whole caboodle was gone. I didn't feel nothin' but the wind they raised, as they went over me an' up into the elements. Did you ever pass along by a pastur' at night, an' hear a cow fetch a long sigh? Well, that's jest the kind of fuss they made as they passed out'n sight."
This story made a striking climax to the performances that the negroes themselves had witnessed, and for a time they were subdued in their demeanour. They even betrayed a tendency to renew their old familiar relations with the whites. The situation was not without its pathetic side, and if Mr. Sanders professed to find it simply humourous, it was only because of the effort which men make—an effort that is only too successful—to hide the tenderer side of their natures. But the episode of the White Riders soon became a piece of history; the alarm that it had engendered grew cold; and Hotchkiss, aided by Bridalbin, who called himself Boring, soon had the breach between the two races wider than ever.