Mrs. Wehle pushed her way into the mob and threw the rope off her husband’s neck, and began to talk with vehemence in German.  For a moment the drunken fellows hung back out of respect for a woman.  Then Bill Day was suddenly impressed with the fact that the duty of persuading Mrs. Wehle to consent to her husband’s execution devolved upon him.

“Take keer, boys; let me talk to the ole woman.  I’ll argy the case.”

“You can’t speak Dutch no more nor a hoss can,” squeaked Jeems West.

“Blam’d ef I can’t, though.  Hyer, ole woman, firshta Dutch?”

“Ya.”

“Now,” said Bill, turning to the others in triumph, “what did I tell you?  Well, you see, your boy August is a thief.”

“He’s not a teef!” said the old man.

“Shet up your jaw.  I say he is.  Now, your ole man’s got to be hung.”

“Vot vor?” broke in Gottlieb.

“Bekase it’s all your own fault.  You hadn’t orter be a Dutchman.”

Here the crowd fell into a wrangle.  It was not so easy to hang a man when such a woman stood there pleading for him.  Besides, Bob Short insisted that hanging was arsony in the first degree, and they better not do it.  To this Bill Day assented.  He said he ’sposed tar and feathers was only larson in the second degree.  And then it would be rale ludikerous.  And now confused cries of “Bring on the tar!” “Where’s the feathers?” “Take off his clothes!” began to be raised.  Norman stood out for hanging.  Drink always intensified his meanness.  But the tar couldn’t be found.  The man whom they had left lying by the roadside with a broken arm had carried the tar, and had been well coated with it himself in his fall.

“Ha-oop!” shouted Bill Day.  “Let’s do somethin’.  Dog-on the arsony!  Let’s hang him as high as Dan’el.”

And with that the rope was thrown over Gottlieb’s, neck and he was hurried off to the nearest tree.  The rope was then put over a limb, and a drunken half-dozen got ready to pull, while Norman Anderson adjusted the noose and valiant Bill Day undertook to keep off Mrs. Wehle.

“All ready!  Pull up!  Ha-oop!” shouted Bill Day, and the crowd pulled, but Mrs. Wehle had slipped off the noose again, and the volunteer executioners fell over one another in such a way as to excite the derisive laughter of Bill Day, who thought it perfectly ludikerous.  But before the laugh had finished, the indignant Gottlieb had knocked Bill Day over and sent Norman after him.  The blow sobered them a little, and suddenly destroyed Bill’s ambition to commit “arsony,” or do anything else ludikerous.  But Norman was furious, and under his lead Wehle’s arms were now bound with the rope and a consultation was held, during which little Wilhelmina pleaded for her father effectively, and more by her tears and cries and the wringing of her chubby hands than by any words.  Bill Day said he be blamed of that little Dutch gal’s takin’ on so didn’t kinder make him foul sorter scrimpshous