The moment he had gone, Steve revived and crawled in bed, his teeth chattering with a nervous chill. The soldiers sat down and laughed in his face, and cracked jokes about the bravery of men who could ride well at night but sometimes fainted in the daylight.
The Attorney General had ordered Steve’s arrest on a shrewd guess which Ackerman had made on hearing of the strange fight between two groups of horsemen in the country at dusk the night before. The detective had seen the doctor leaving Hoyle’s house and learned at once that Steve was wounded.
In attempting to serve the warrant on John Graham he had found that he had ridden into the country alone in the direction taken by Steve Hoyle. Ackerman had long suspected Steve of complicity in the movements of the Klan, and knowing the deadly enmity between the two men had at once reached the conclusion that a feud within the ranks of its members could alone account for the situation.
“Arrest Hoyle,” he urged on Champion; “threaten him with immediate conviction for conspiracy and murder and see what happens.”
The Attorney General had taken his advice, and on receiving the report of Steve’s “illness” from the sergeant, went immediately to see him.
Steve was profuse in his expressions of cordiality.
“I’m sorry, General Champion,” he said, with loud friendliness, “that my father and mother are in the North at present. They spend a great deal of their time up there among you good Yankees. The fact is they are specially fond of you. My father, you know, was a secret Union man during the war and has always voted your ticket since, though for social reasons he don’t say much about it down here.”
Steve winked and laughed feebly.
“Is it so?” asked the General.
“Yes, of course,” Steve hurried on, “and I want to ask you as a personal favour to my father, if not to me, to accept my bail for £10,000. The whole thing, I assure you, is an absurd mistake. My father and I can convince you of this on his return.”