Being an earnest soul, Westley had taken the Potts affair very seriously.  He made it a point to encounter the Colonel on an early day and to address him on Main Street in tones that lacked the least affectation of suavity or diplomatic guile.  He had seen diplomacy tried and found wretchedly wanting.  He would have no more of it ever.  Like the straightaway man he was, he went to the meat of the matter.

“You squandered that hundred dollars we give you to git out of town on,” he burst forth to Potts, breathing with an ominous difficulty.

“You just wait till you hear the worst of it,” answered Potts, as he confidingly dusted the shoulder of Westley’s coat.  “The worst of it is I had over twelve dollars of my own money that I’d saved up—­you know how hard it is to save money in these little towns—­well, that went, too, every cent of it!”

It was admitted by witnesses competent to form an opinion that Westley’s contorted face, his troubled breathing, his manner of stepping back, and the curious writhing of his stout arms, all encouraged a supposition that he might be contemplating immediate violence upon the person of Potts.  At all events, this view was taken by the aggrieved and puzzled Colonel, who fled through the Boston Cash Store and, by means of a rear exit from that emporium, gained the office of Truman Baird, Justice of the Peace, where he swore to a legal document which averred that “the said Jonas R. Potts” was “in fear of immediate and great bodily harm, which he has reasonable cause to believe will be inflicted upon him by the said Westley Keyts.”

The majesty of the law being thus invoked, Westley was put under a good and sufficient bond to refrain from “in any manner of attacking or molesting the said Potts, against the statutes therein made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Illinois.”

A proceeding so official somewhat dampened the fires of Mr. Keyts.  He was a citizen, law-abiding by intention, with a patriot’s esteem for government.  It had merely not occurred to him that the summary extinction of Potts could be a performance at all incompatible with the peace and dignity of the great commonwealth to which he was at heart loyal.  Being convinced otherwise, he abode grimly by the statutes therein made and provided.  Nevertheless he returned to his shop and proceeded to cut up a quarter of beef with an energy of concentration and a ruthlessness of fury that caused Potts to shudder as he passed the door sometime later.  By such demeanor, also, were the bondsmen of Westley—­the first flush of their righteous enthusiasm faded—­greatly disturbed.  They agreed that he ought to be watched closely by day, and they even debated the wisdom of sitting up nights with him for a time, turn by turn.  But their charge dissuaded them from this precaution.  He expended his first vicious fury usefully upon his stock in trade, with knife and saw and cleaver, and thereafter he was but petulant or sarcastic.