Sheriff Dowd took advantage of Selectman Grant’s preoccupation with Harnden.  He gave off orders to his helpers and they lowered the bars of the barnyard and started away with the cows.

There was a general disintegration of the group.  Mrs. Grant led the lamenting womenfolk into the house.  Mr. Harnden did not really extricate his nose; Grant twisted so violently that he broke his own grip, and his victim laced the whip under the horse’s belly and escaped.

Within ten minutes Selectman Grant was whipping his own horse in a direction opposite to that which Harnden had taken.  Mr. Grant was hot after law.

Squire Hexter gave him the law, and cold comfort.

“They can do it, Jared.  Outsiders can get hold of unpaid town orders and put on the screws if they’re that heartless.  It isn’t done once in a dog’s age.  But, as I say, it can be done when a creditor is ugly enough.  Harnden didn’t say, did he, just who brought the orders?”

“I wouldn’t have believed him if he did say!  But he didn’t say.”

“And you don’t know the man who secured judgment?”

“Never heard of him.”

“I will try to trace the matter, Jared.  No, keep your wallet in your pocket.  There’s no charge.  It’s a case where the interests of the citizens in general are concerned.  I’m the regularly elected town agent, as you know!” The Squire smiled.  “I’ll take a town order for my pay.”  He looked out of the window.  “It’s about time for somebody else to come larruping up here after law!  Don’t hurry, Jared!  Wait and hear what’s happened to the neighbors!”

The selectman sat gloomily, elbows squared on his knees, and waited.  Almost opposite the Squire’s office the rattle-te-bang business on Britt’s premises was going on.

“I wonder whether Tasper will dare to go ahead and build his palace after he hears the latest news,” suggested the Squire.  “You must be told, Jared, that after the live stock of the town has been thinned down to the essentials permitted by law, then the farms and general real estate can be levied on.”

Grant lifted his haggard face and stared at the Squire.  “Then, outside of the cook stove and my clothes, I don’t know whether I’m worth a blasted cent, hey?  They can dreen me slow with a gimlet, or let it out all at once with a pod auger, can they?  That’s what the law can do to me, you say!  What can it do for me, Squire Hexter?”

“Well, Jared, they’ll take your cows over to the shire and auction them off for what they’ll bring.  You can sue this town and recover the real value of the cows, along with interest at twelve per cent.  That is to say, you can get judgment against the town for that amount.”

“And then I can go over to my neighbor’s and grab away any loose property I can find of his?”

“You can do it!”

“Look here, Squire, that makes it nothing except a game of ’tag, you’re it,’ and a case of ‘I’ve got my fingers crossed’!  The whole of us running around in circles, and the lawyers picking up all the loose change we drop from our pockets.  Where do we wind up?”