Westerfelt got down from his horse.  “I’m completely in your power,” he replied.  “I won’t beg any man nor gang of men living to give me my rights.  I suppose I am accused of having reported those fellows to the revenue men.  I have simply to say that it is a lie!”

“Uh, uh!” said the leader; “careful! careful!  Don’t be reckless.  We uns ain’t the lyin’ sort.”

“I say it’s a lie!” Westerfelt stared straight into the mask of Toot Wambush.  The wearer of it started and half raised his revolver, but quickly concealed it under the sheet that hung below his waist.  Everybody was silent, as if they expected a reply from Wambush, but he made none.

“Them pore Cohutta men lyin’ in the Atlanta jail said so, anyway,” returned the leader.  “They ain’t heer to speak fer the’rse’ves; it’s a easy thing to give them the lie behind the’r backs.”

“They were mistaken, that’s all,” said Westerfelt.  “Nobody but the revenue men themselves could tell the whole truth about it.  I did pass the wagon—­”

“An’ eavedropped on our two men.  Oh, we know you did, kase they heerd a sound, an’ then as you didn’t come for’ard, they ’lowed they had made a mistake, but when you finally did pass they knowed it wus you, an’ that you’d been listenin’.”

“That’s the truth,” admitted Westerfelt.  “I had been warned that it would be dangerous for me to go about in the mountains alone.  I heard the men talking, and stopped to find out who they were.  I did not want to run into an ambush.  As soon as I found out who they were I spoke to them and passed.”

“At the stable, though, young man,” reminded the leader—­“at the stable, when the bluecoats fetched the prisoners an’ the plunder in, they told you that they’d found them right whar you said they wus.”

“You bet he did.  What’s the use a-jabberin’ any longer?” The voice was unmistakably Wambush’s, and his angry tones seemed to fire the impatience of the others.  Westerfelt started to speak, but his words were drowned in a tumult of voices.

“Go ahead!” cried several.

“Go ahead!  Are you gwine to hold a court an’ try ’im by law?” asked Wambush, hotly.  “I ’lowed that point was done settled.”

Westerfelt calmly folded his arms.  “I’ve no more to say.  I see I’m not going to be heard.  You are a gang of cold-blooded murderers.”

The words seemed to anger the leader.

“Shuck off that coat an’ shirt!” was his order.

Westerfelt did not move.  “I’m glad to say I’m not afraid of you,” he said.  “If you have got human hearts in you, though, you’ll kill me, and not let me live after the degradation you are going to inflict.  I know who’s led you to this.  It is a cowardly dog who never had a thing against me till I refused to let him have credit at my stable, when he owes an account that’s been running for two years.  He tried to kill me with a pistol and a knife when