Norton turned and confronted the chosen orator of the opposition, a backwoods preacher of a rude native eloquence whose name he had often heard.
He saw at a glance that he was a man of force. His strong mouth was clean of mustache and the lower lip was shaved to the chin. A long beard covered the massive jaws and his hair reached the collar of his coat. He had been a deserter during the war, and a drunken member of the little Scalawag Governor's famous guard that had attempted to rule the state without the civil law. He had been converted in a Baptist revival at a crossroads meeting place years before and became a preacher. His religious conversion, however, had not reached his politics or dimmed his memory of the events of Reconstruction.
He had hated Norton with a deep and abiding fervor from the day he had escaped from his battalion in the Civil War down to the present moment.
Norton hadn't the remotest idea that he was the young recruit who had taken to his heels on entering a battle and never stopped running until he reached home.
"This is Major Norton?" the preacher asked.
"Yes," was the curt answer.
"I demand a division of time with you in a joint discussion here, sir."
Norton's figure stiffened and he looked at the man with a flush of anger:
"Did you say demand?"
"Yes, sir, I did," the preacher answered, snapping his hard mouth firmly. "We believe in free speech in this county."