“All of ye take warnin’,” bawled the Cap’n to his townsmen, who were crowding their wagons into the station square.

Constable Zeburee Nute drove his whip into the socket, threw down his reins, and stood up.  The hollow hoot of the locomotive had sounded up the track.

“Feller citizens,” he cried, “as chairman of the committee of notification, I desire to report that I have ’tended to my duties in so far as I could to date.  But there has things happened that I can’t figger out, and for which I ain’t responsible.  There ain’t no time now for ifs, buts, or ands.  That train is too near.  A certain prominunt citizen that I don’t need to name is thinkin’ of takin’ that train when he ain’t fit to do so.  There’ll be time to talk it over afterward.”

Cap’n Sproul was backing away to turn the corner of the station.

“I call on all of ye as a posse,” bawled Mr. Nute.  “Bring along your halters and don’t use no vi’lence.”

Samson himself, even though his weapon had been the jaw-bone of a megatherium, couldn’t have resisted that onrush of the willing populace.  In five minutes, the Cap’n, trussed hand and foot, and crowded in between Constables Nute and Wade, was riding back toward Smyrna town house, helpless as a veal calf bound for market.

“Now,” resumed Mr. Nute, calmly, “now that you’re with us, Cap’n, and seem to be quieted down a little, I’ll perceed to execute the errunt put upon me as chairman of the notification committee.”

With Mr. Wade driving slowly, he read the newspaper clipping that sounded the clarion call that summoned men of probity to public office, and at the close formally notified Cap’n Sproul that he had been elected first selectman of Smyrna.  He did all this without enthusiasm, and sighed with official relief when it was over.

“And,” he wound up, “it is the sentiment of this town that there ain’t another man in it so well qualified to lead us up out of the valley of darkness where we’ve been wallerin’.  We have called our Cincinnatus to his duty.”

They had come around a bend of the road and now faced Colonel Ward, stumping along stolidly through the slush, following the trail of his team.

“That’s the way he ought to be,” roared the Colonel.  “Rope him up!  Put ox-chains on him.  And I’ll give a thousand dollars to build an iron cage for him.  You’re all crazy and he’s your head lunatic.”

Mr. Nute, inwardly, during all the time that he had been so calmly addressing his captive, was tortured with cruel doubts as to the Cap’n’s sanity.  But he believed in discharging his duty first.  And he remembered that insane people were more easily prevailed upon by those who appeared to make no account of their whims.

During it all, Cap’n Sproul had been silent in utter amazement.  The truth had come in a blinding flash that would have unsettled a man not so well trained to control emotion.

“Drive along,” he curtly commanded Nute, paying no heed to the incensed Colonel’s railings.  “You look me in the eye,” he continued, as soon as they were out of hearing.  “Do you see any signs that I am out of my head, or that I need these ropes on me?”