“Oh, that's it!” said Garner. “You are in a hurry!” And then, from the rigid setting of his jaw, it was plain that the lawyer had decided on the best mode of handling the specimen glowering down upon him. “Oh yes, I remember now, Willis, that you were loaded up a few nights ago looking for that chap. Now, advice is cheap—that is, the sort I'm going to give you. Under ordinary circumstances I'd charge a fee for it. My advice to you is to straddle that horse of yours and get out of this town. You are looking for trouble—great, big, far-reaching trouble.”
“You hit the nail that pop, Bill Garner,” the mountaineer snorted. “I'm expectin' to git trouble, or give trouble, an' I hain't goin' to lose time nuther. This settlement was due several days ago, but got put off.”
“Look here, Willis”—Garner stood up facing him—“you may not be a fool, but you are acting powerfully like one. You are letting that measly little candidate for the legislature make a cat's-paw of you. That's what you're doing. He knows, if he can get up a shooting-scrap between you and my pardner over that negro-whipping business, it will turn a few mountain votes his way. If you get shot, Wiggin will have more charges to make; and if Carson was to get the worst of it, the boy would be clean out of the skunk's way. You and Wiggin are both in bad business.”
“Well, that's my lookout!” the mountaineer growled, beside himself in rage. “Carson Dwight said I was with Johnson the night the gang came in and whipped them coons, and—”
“Well, you were,” said Garner, as suddenly as if he were browbeating a witness. “What's the use to lie about it?”
“Lie—you say I—?”
“I said I didn't want you to lie about it,” said Garner, calmly. “I know half the mob, and respect most of them. I have an idea that some of my own kinsfolk was along that night. They thought they were doing right and acting in the best interests of the community. That's neither here nor there. The men that were licked were negroes, and most of them bad ones at that, but when a big, strapping man of your stamp comes with blood in his eye and a hunk of metal on his hip, looking for the son of an old Confederate soldier, who is a Democratic candidate for the legislature, and a good all-round white citizen, why, I say that is the time to call a halt, and to call it out loud! I happen to know a few of the grand jury, and if there is trouble of a serious nature in this town to-day, I can personally testify to enough deliberation in your voice and eye this morning to jerk your neck out of joint.”
“What the hell do I care for you or your law?” Dan Willis snorted. “It's what that damned dude said about me that he's got to swallow, and if he's in this town I'll find him. A fellow told me if he wasn't here he'd be in Keith Gordon's room. I don't know whar that is, but I kin find out.” Turning abruptly, Willis strode out into the street again.
“The devil certainly is to pay now,” Garner said, with his deepest frown as he closed the law-book, thrust it back into its dusty niche in his bookcase, and put on his hat. “Carson is still up there with those boys, and that fellow may find him any minute. Carson won't take back a thing. He's as mad about the business as Willis is. I wonder if I can possibly manage to keep them apart.”
On his way to the den he met Pole Baker standing on the corner of the street by a load of wood, which Pole had brought in to sell. Hurriedly, Garner explained the situation, ending by asking the farmer if he could see any way of getting Willis out of town.