The sheriff had just locked the heavy front door of the jail behind him when a half dozen horsemen, followed by a crowd of men on foot, came round a bend in the road and drew near the jail.  They halted in front of the picket fence that surrounded the building, while several of the committee of arrangements rode on a few rods farther to the sheriff’s house.  One of them dismounted and rapped on the door with his riding-whip.

“Is the sheriff at home?” he inquired.

“No, he has just gone out,” replied Polly, who had come to the door.

“We want the jail keys,” he continued.

“They are not here,” said Polly.  “The sheriff has them himself.”  Then she added, with assumed indifference, “He is at the jail now.”

The man turned away, and Polly went into the front room, from which she peered anxiously between the slats of the green blinds of a window that looked toward the jail.  Meanwhile the messenger returned to his companions and announced his discovery.  It looked as though the sheriff had learned of their design and was preparing to resist it.

One of them stepped forward and rapped on the jail door.

“Well, what is it?” said the sheriff, from within.

“We want to talk to you, Sheriff,” replied the spokesman.

There was a little wicket in the door; this the sheriff opened, and answered through it.

“All right, boys, talk away.  You are all strangers to me, and I don’t know what business you can have.”  The sheriff did not think it necessary to recognize anybody in particular on such an occasion; the question of identity sometimes comes up in the investigation of these extra-judicial executions.

“We ’re a committee of citizens and we want to get into the jail.”

“What for?  It ain’t much trouble to get into jail.  Most people want to keep out.”

The mob was in no humor to appreciate a joke, and the sheriff’s witticism fell dead upon an unresponsive audience.

“We want to have a talk with the nigger that killed Cap’n Walker.”

“You can talk to that nigger in the court-house, when he ’s brought out for trial.  Court will be in session here next week.  I know what you fellows want, but you can’t get my prisoner to-day.  Do you want to take the bread out of a poor man’s mouth?  I get seventy-five cents a day for keeping this prisoner, and he ’s the only one in jail.  I can’t have my family suffer just to please you fellows.”

One or two young men in the crowd laughed at the idea of Sheriff Campbell’s suffering for want of seventy-five cents a day; but they were frowned into silence by those who stood near them.

“Ef yer don’t let us in,” cried a voice, “we ‘ll bu’s’ the do’ open.”

“Bust away,” answered the sheriff, raising his voice so that all could hear.  “But I give you fair warning.  The first man that tries it will be filled with buckshot.  I ’m sheriff of this county; I know my duty, and I mean to do it.”