two or three, in that direction, would have been to give the alarm at once—­as the moon is about full.  After consultation, it was decided that the attorney-general alone should attend to this delicate part of the plan.  It was his own suggestion that he should go to Anvil Rock immediately after dark to-morrow night, and wait there in the shadow—­watching everything that passes—­till his men join him, after beating the bushes and going over the country with a drag-net.  It’s a dangerous task that he has taken on himself, notwithstanding that the posse guarding the swamp should be in hearing of his voice by the time he reaches Anvil Rock.  I told him so; but he said that it must be done by some one man, since more than one would defeat our whole undertaking, and that it was the duty of no one but himself.  However, he has ordered all his men—­the different posses sent out in various directions—­to draw in toward Anvil Rock, so that he will not be there long alone, and not at any time beyond the hearing of his men, should he find it necessary to call for help.  Anyway, I couldn’t dissuade him from going alone.  It was no more than General Jackson had done, he declared, when I protested; and he also thought that being alone made it unlikely that he would be observed.  The main object was for him to be near by when his men should need him, and that purpose would be best served by his waiting in the shadow of Anvil Rock.  I said what I could, and urged him to let me go with him, but he stuck to it that only one man must go.”  The judge spoke anxiously, wearily now, all anger forgotten.  “And he will be there.  He never knew what fear was, in doing his duty; he would walk straight into the devil’s den and attack him single-handed, without the quiver of a nerve.”

“Allow me to congratulate you, sir,” William Pressley said distantly, with an air of polite concession to somewhat foolish enthusiasm.  “I think you have perhaps been rather more troubled over certain outbreaks of lawlessness than you need have been.  They are to be expected, I suppose, in all new countries, and they gradually disappear before the advance of civilization, as Mr. Alston says.  All that is in the natural order of human events.  However, since you have been so much disturbed, I am truly pleased that you are so soon to be relieved of all uneasiness from this source.  May I ask, sir, if you can tell me the precise date of the attorney-general’s departure—­for the seat of war, I mean—­for Tippecanoe?”

The judge shook his head, hardly hearing the inquiry.  The agitation which had shaken him was leaving him greatly spent.  The old look of abstraction came back, quickly dulling his gaze, and, sinking down in his chair, he very soon began to nod and doze.

“With your permission, sir,” William went on with a touch of sarcasm in his cool, slow voice, “I should like to call upon Mr. Alston to-morrow.  You have, I presume, no objection to my going to see him in his own house.  It is impossible to drop a matter of business without a word of explanation.  And if you have no objection, I will mention to him the matters of which you have just been speaking.  No one has a deeper interest in the public welfare, and certainly no one could be more eminently discreet.  However, I shall, of course, speak in the strictest confidence.”