“He’d ought to be shot for a nigger-lover, Sheriff!” shouted the farm-hand.

“All right.  Do it.  But you’ll get your neck stretched for it!  My name’s Champneys,” shouted Peter.

The sheriff moved restlessly on his bay.  A Champneys had fed his parents.  Chadwick Champneys had given him his first pair of shoes.  The sheriff was stirred to the depths by the crime that had been committed, and he had no love for a nigger, but—­

He turned to the menacing crowd.  “Here, boys, enough o’ this!  The right nigger’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.  No, you don’t do no hangin’!  I’m sheriff o’ this county, an’ I aim to keep the law.  Let that old nigger alone, Mosely!  If that young hell-cat puts a bullet in your chitlin’s, it’ll be your own funeral.”

He straightened in the saddle, touched the rein, and in a second the big bay had been swung around to stand between Neptune and the white men.  The muzzle of Peter’s gun touched the sheriff’s leg.

“Put that pop-gun up, Son,” said he, turning his head to look down into the boy’s face.  Their eyes met, in a long look.

“I knew that girl since she was bawn,” he said, and his hard face quivered.  “Hell!” swore the sheriff, and the hand on his bridle shook.  He knew old Neptune, too, and in his way liked him.  But it was hard for the sheriff, who had seen the dead little girl, to look into any black face that night and retain any feeling of humanity.

“Yes, sir.  I knew her, too,” said Peter Champneys, gulping.  “But—­I know Neptune, too.  And—­what happened—­wasn’t his fault.  It’s got nothing to do with Neptune—­and—­and things that Mosely—­” His voice broke.

“Hell!” swore the sheriff again.  And he whispered, more gently, “All right, Peter.  An’ I reckon you better stay by the old nigger for a day or two until this thing dies down.”  After all, the sheriff thought relievedly, Neptune’s swift action, actuated by whatsoever motive, had saved the county and himself from a rather frightful episode.  Turning to the crowd, he yelled: 

“Get them dogs started for home!  They’re goin’ plum crazy!  Get on your hawse, Mosely!  You, over there, with your fist shot up, ride next to me.  Mount, all o’ you!  Mount, I say!  No, I’ll come last.

“What’s that you’re sayin’, Briggs?  No, suh, not by a damn-sight you won’t!  Not while I’m sheriff o’ this county an’ upholdin’ law an’ order in it, you won’t drag no dead nigger behind my hawse—­nor yet in front of him, neither!  Let the nigger lay where he is and rot—­what’s left of him.”

“Do you want us to bury—­it?” quavered Peter.

“Bury it or burn it.  What the hell do I care what you do with it?” growled the sheriff.  “He’s dead, that’s all I got to think about.”  He ran his shrewd eyes over the posse, saw that not one straggler remained to do further mischief, and drove them before him, willy-nilly.  In five minutes the trampled yard was clear, and the sound of the horses’ hoofs was already dying in the distance.  In the sky all other stars had paled to make room for the morning star.