"Said that he had been appointed by the council to whip you?" Norman asked, in amazement.
"That's what he said, sir," the boy went on. "He gave me forty-nine lashes with a cowhide and then set down and talked to me a half hour."
"And what did he say?" Norman inquired, forcing back a smile by a desperate effort.
"He told me that he tried to get out of the work, but the council had forced it on him. Said there oughtn't to be no hard feelings, that it was a dirty, tiresome job, and he didn't have no pleasure in it, but it had to be done for the salvation of the people. He said it wasn't wise to talk about such things among the Brotherhood. I told him I'd tell my ma the minute I got home. He said that would be foolish, that none of the others had said a word, that they had all taken their medicine like little men."
"He told you he had whipped all the others who had taken that walk with him?" Norman gasped.
"That's what he said, sir," the boy insisted, "and I guess he had, for they'd pawed a hole in the sand 'round that whipping-post big enough to bury a horse in."
The boy paused and his mother shook him angrily.
"Tell what else he said to you!"
The cub glanced hastily toward the door and whispered:
"Said if I opened my mouth about what had happened he'd skin me alive."