At this juncture a man emerged from the close-growing bushes across the road, a look of astonishment on his face. It was Jabe Parsons. “What's wrong here?” he cried, excitedly.
“Oh, nothin' much,” Braider answered, with a white sneer of fury. “We stopped here with Pete Warren to borrow your horses to git 'im over the mountain to the Gilmore jail, an' your good woman grabbed Bill's gun while I was in the stable an' deliberately turned the nigger loose.”
“Great God! what's the matter with you?” Parsons thundered at his wife, who, red-faced and defiant, stood rubbing a small bruised spot on her wrist.
“Nothin's the matter with me,” she retorted, “except I've got more sense than you men have. I know that boy didn't kill them folks, an' I didn't intend to see you-all lynch 'im.”
“Well, I know he did!” Parsons yelled. “But he'll be caught before night, anyway. He can't hide in them woods from hounds like they've got down the road.”
“Your wife 'lowed he'd be safer in the woods than in the Gilmore jail,” Braider said, with another sneer.
“Well, he would. As for that,” Parsons retorted, “if you think that army headed by the dead woman's daddy an' brothers would halt at a puny bird-cage like that jail, you don't know mountain men. They'd smash the damn thing like an egg-shell. I reckon a sheriff has to pretend to act fer the law, whether he earns his salary or not. Well, I'll go down the road an' tell 'em whar to look. Thar'll be a picnic som 'er's nigh here in a powerful short while. We've got men enough to surround that whole mountain.”