“Hello! what have we heer?” It was the undisguised voice of Wade Sims. The gang of twenty men or more paused abruptly. There was a hurried fitting on of white cloth masks.
“Who’s thar?” called out the same voice, peremptorily, and the hammer of a revolver clicked.
“Me—Jim Trundle.”
“Huh!” Wade’s grunt of surprise was echoed in various exclamations round the group. “On yore way out ’n the county, eh? Seems to me yore time’s up. We ’ll have to put it to a vote. It’s a little past eight o’clock, an’ you’ve had the whole day to git a move on you. Whar you bound fer?”
“I ain’t on my way nowhar. I come down heer a half-hour ago to meet you-uns, an’ I’ve jest been a-waitin’.”
“To meet we-uns? Huh! Jeewhilikins!” It sounded like Alf Carden’s voice.
“I—I ‘lowed you-uns would likely want to do it heer, bein’ as it was whar you-uns tuck Joe Rand last fall.”
Silence fell—a silence so profound, so susceptible, that it seemed to retain Trundle’s words and hold them up to sight rather than to hearing for fully half a minute after they had ceased to stir the air. Even Wade Sim’s blustering equipose was shaken. His mask appealed helplessly to other masks, but their jagged eye-holes offered no helpful suggestions.
“Well, we are much obleeged to you,” said Wade, awkwardly; and he laughed a laugh that went little farther than his mask. “Boys, he looks like he’s actu’ly itchin’ fer it; you needn’t feel at all squeamish.”
“I’ve been studyin’ over it,” said Trundle, furnishing more surprise, “and I’ve concluded that I ort to be whipped, an’ that sound. In fact, neighbors, the sooner you do it an’ have it over the better I ’ll feel about it.”