Over a score of men, most of them half drunk, were gathered in front of a large barn.  From the ridge of this projected a derrick-beam with a pulley through which a rope was roved.  One end of the rope was in the hands of several threshers, the other was in a noose around Gil Steele’s neck.  Mrs. Steele was being bound and gagged by other men.  The action of the group came to an abrupt standstill as the vigilantes dismounted and crowded into the foreground.

“Unloose that rope,” said Mr. Sherwood.  He released Mrs. Steele himself.

The man who seemed to be the thresher’s leader glanced around at the vigilantes, their number, their rifles, and their Colt guns.  He unloosed the rope.

“Now, what’s all this about?” demanded Mr. Sherwood, seeing that danger was averted.

In an instant Babel broke loose.  The sober and half-drunken men and Gil Steele began loud and angry explanations.  Steele was interrupted by his wife, who staggered and almost fell as she threw herself on his breast and fainted.  Thus was the step from tragedy to comedy taken, but no one thought of laughing.  The tragedy was too close.

Then came another interruption:  the arrival of the double-laden horses with Injun and Dorgan.  When the latter was dragged into the group, and the bag of money thrown on the ground in front of him, there was another ominous silence.  Gil Steele released himself from his wife, who had recovered.  He knelt and with trembling fingers undid the neck of the bag, and displayed its contents of gold and silver.  That bag of money was the key to the whole situation.  Again Babel broke loose.

In time, out of the yells, curses, threats, and other sounds, this story was extracted:  Gil Steele’s closeness, not to say meanness, had made him more than unpopular.  The threshers who owned the machine worked a percentage of the grain which they carted away to the railroad.  Gil had tried to reduce this percentage.  The threshers, abetted by Henry Dorgan, had tried to increase it.  Dorgan also had told the hired hands that Steele intended to reduce their wages.  Steele had become angry and refused to talk to any of the men.  In some mysterious way Dorgan had introduced a keg of whiskey into the situation.

The hands had demanded their money, and none was forthcoming.  They had attacked Gil Steele, who had wounded one of them and fled.  It was then that Mrs. Steele had sent Whitey for aid, as it was certain that the infuriated mob would hang Steele if they found him.  Gil was hidden in a most unromantic place; a sort of dugout, one-third dirt, one-third boards, and one-third stone, in which hams were smoked.  You know how near he came to going from that place to his death.

And Henry Dorgan had created the disturbance so that under cover of it he might steal the bag containing the money for the men.

When this fact was apparent to the minds of the excited hands, they and Gil Steele made a rush for the cowering Dorgan, but Mr. Sherwood and some of the vigilantes intervened with drawn weapons and forced them back.  The vigilantes would see that the law punished Dorgan.  There was loud-voiced protest against this, but the attackers were outnumbered and were helpless.