“Your memory is sharp, master lieutenant; I did say, and I say so still.  But he affects to think not, and I should not be at all surprised if he not only deny it to you, but in reality disbelieve it himself.  Have you not heard of men who have learned in time to believe the lies of their own invention?  Why not men doubt the truth of their own doings?  There are such men, and he may he one of them.  He may deny stoutly and solemnly the charge, but let him not deceive you or baffle your pursuit.  We shall prove it upon him, and he shall hang, Dillon—­ay, hang, hang, hang—­though it be under her very eyes!”

It was in this way that, in the progress of the dialogue which took place between the chief and his subordinate, the rambling malignity would break through the cooler counsels of the villain, and dark glimpses of the mystery of the transaction would burst upon the senses of the latter.  Rivers had the faculty, however, of never exhibiting too much of himself; and when hurried on by a passion seemingly too fierce and furious for restraint, he would suddenly curb himself in, while a sharp and scornful smile would curl his lips, as if he felt a consciousness, not only of his own powers of command, but of his impenetrability to all analysis.

The horses being now ready, the outlaw, buckling on his pistols, and hiding his dirk in his bosom, threw a huge cloak over his shoulders, which fully concealed his person; and, in company with his lieutenant, and two stout men of his band, all admirably and freshly mounted, they proceeded to the abode of the sheriff.

This man, connected, though secretly, with Rivers and Munro, was indebted to them and the votes which in that region they could throw into the boxes, for his elevation to the office which he held, and was, as might reasonably have been expected, a mere creature under their management.  Maxson, of late days, however, whether from a reasonable apprehension, increasing duly with increasing years, that he might become at last so involved in the meshes of those crimes of his colleagues, from which, while he was compelled to share the risk, he was denied in great part the profit, had grown scrupulous—­had avoided as much as possible their connexion; and, the better to strengthen himself in the increasing favor of public opinion, had taken advantage of all those externals of morality and virtue which, unhappily, too frequently conceal qualities at deadly hostility with them.  He had, in the popular phrase of the country, “got religion;” and, like the worthy reformers of the Cromwell era, everything which he did, and everything which he said, had Scripture for its authority.  Psalm-singing commenced and ended the day in his house, and graces before meat and graces before sleep, prayers and ablutions, thanksgivings and fastings, had so much thinned the animal necessities of his household, that a domestic war was the consequence, and the sheriff and the sheriff’s lady held separate sway, having equally divided the