They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders and kill them as they were uncovered. A hundred men would fire the jail from the rear, a hundred more with guns would shoot in front.
It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and saturated paper and torches were prepared.
“We are in for it, Bishop,” said Captain Tom, as he saw the preparation; “this is worse than Franklin, because there we could protect our rear.”
He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and called to them quietly and with deadly calm:
“Go to your homes, men—go! But if you will come, know that I fought for my country's laws from Shiloh to Franklin, and I can die for them here!”
Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag, spangled with stars and the blood-splotches of his father who fell in Mexico, and he shook it out and flung it over his barricade, saying cheerily: “I am all right for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my guns—just one of my old Parrots that I had last week at Franklin!”
The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, said:
“Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not last week.”
The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the fury of their defeat had thought no more of him. But now, the loss of blood, the cool night air revived him. He sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere bonfires burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk and he knew all. He was shot through the left lung, so near to his heart that, as he felt it, he wondered how he had escaped.
He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood that ran down and half filled his left boot. But his was a constitution of steel—an athlete, a hunter, a horseman, a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came back to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped—as he had made Jack Bracken shoot to do.