"To hang to the nearest tree."
"What's he been a-doin'?"
"Killin' a friend of our'n down on the railroad."
The horror of it almost took her breath, but she maintained her defensive attitude bravely.
"That's er turrible thing," she said, praying that every blast of the horn would bring her father.
"See here, young woman, you'd better get outen that and let us have him. We don't mean no harm to you, but we ain't got time to argue with you."
"I'm plum' sorry for you, but I'm bound ter do what I kin fer the law. We air peaceable folks here, an' like ter be punished 'cordin' ter law. If you'll git the jestice o' the peace an' have Mr. Sanders tuk ter jail, I ain't no objections."
Their wrath was evidently cooling somewhat, and they were forced to a reluctant admiration of her pluck.
If they had known that she was trembling like a leaf, that her arms were feeling nerveless and weak, her eyes dim! She knew that she could not hold out much longer in that threatening attitude. A moment of dead silence fell while the men consulted in whispers, and Bet could hear the deep, hurried breathing of the hidden man, and the horrified moans and ejaculations of her mother with a distinctness absolutely painful to her. But help had come. Her strained eyes wandered despairingly from those dark, angry faces confronting her, and she saw her father and two or three other men coming through the lot.
Matters were at last peaceably adjusted. Mr. Crow argued so mildly and reasonably with the avenging party that they consented—the farmers bearing them company—to take their prisoner and allow the law to deal with him.