“Major Hampton,” said Horton, turning to Hugh, “has good blood in him. I have an impression that he will overtake the thieves.”
Soon after this Hugh took leave of Mr. Horton, who gave him a pressing invitation to call at his ranch. Hugh accepted this invitation by promising to visit Mr. Horton at no distant day.
CHAPTER VIII.—A COMMITTEE OF FIVE
THE Barley Hullers’ Association was a secret society made up principally of tried and true members of the Farmers’ Alliance. It had been founded by Maj. Buell Hampton, who was district organizer of the Farmers’ Alliance in southwestern Kansas. It was said that the primary incentive of the farmers thus associating themselves together was to prevent the excessive prices which they were compelled to pay for articles purchased, and to raise the ruling prices which they had been forced to accept for the products of their farms.
About a mile northeast of Meade, in an old deserted building that had formerly been used as a sugar mill, were the secret lodge-rooms of the organization. This dilapidated building was provided with a spacious reception-room, an anteroom, and a hall of deliberation, and was indifferently illuminated throughout with green and red lights.
The written work of the order was said to be very literary in tone and was based upon the great principle that in union there is strength. Its professed object was to exact justice from the contending forces of the commercial world. Indeed, it was an organization founded on the principles of the brotherhood of man and of fair dealing toward all classes.
Maj. Buell Hampton enjoyed, perhaps, a pardonable pride in this organization, which was strictly a child of his own making. The members had passwords, grips, and everything of that sort, whereby one brother Barley Huller might know another, whether in the dark or in the light. It was a custom, among the members of the organization, to turn out in force on the Fourth of July and other holidays. On such occasions they paraded the streets to the tat-tat-too music of a snare drum and the shrill whistle of a fife. Their badge was a cluster of barley heads, worn as a boutonnihre.
When crops were good the Farmers’ Alliance organization usually languished, but when they were poor a marked revival invariably sprang up. It was the highest ambition of the young farmer who was a member of the local Farmers’ Alliance to show, by his zealous work and adherence to the principles of that organization, that he was worthy and eligible to membership in the Barley Hullers.