Seated or lounging on chairs and on the floor about the room were eleven men; one, the man who had been with Wash Gibbs at the mill, carried his arm in a sling.  The girl outside could hear distinctly every word that was spoken.  Wash, himself, was speaking.  “Well, boys, we’re all here.  Let’s get through and get away.  Bring out the stuff, Jim.”

Mr. Lane went to one corner of the cabin, and, pulling up a loose board of the flooring, drew out two heavy sacks.  As he placed the bags on the table, the men all rose to their feet.  “There it is just as you give it to me,” said Jim.  “But before you go any farther, men, I’ve got something to say.”

The company stirred uneasily, and all eyes turned from Jim to their big leader, while Sammy noticed for the first time that the table had been moved from its usual place, and that her father had taken such a position that the corner of the cabin was directly behind him, with the table in front.  For her life the girl could not have moved.

Slowly Jim swept the group of scowling, wondering faces on the other side of the table.  Then, in his slow drawling speech, he said, “Most of you here was in the old organization.  Tom and Ed and me knows how it started away back, for we was in it at the beginnin’.  Wash, here, was the last man to join, ’fore we was busted, and he was the youngest member, too; bein’ only a boy, but big for his age.  You remember how he was taken in on account of his daddy’s bein’ killed by the gov’ment.

“Didn’t ary one of us fellers that started it ever think the Bald Knobber’s would get to be what they did.  We began it as a kind of protection, times bein’ wild then.  But first we knowed some was a usin’ the order to protect themselves in all kinds of devilment, and things went on that way, ’cause nobody didn’t dare say anything; for if they did they was tried as traitors, and sentenced to the death.

“I ain’t a sayin’, boys, that I was any better than lots of others, for I reckon I done my share.  But when my girl’s mother died, away down there in Texas, I promised her that I’d be a good daddy to my little one, and since then I done the best I know.

“After things quieted down, and I come back with my girl, Wash here got the old crowd, what was left of us, together, and wanted to reorganize again.  I told you then that I’d go in with you and stand by the old oath, so long as it was necessary to protect ourselves from them that might be tryin’ to get even for what had been done, but that I wouldn’t go no farther.  I don’t mind tellin’ you now, boys—­though I reckon you know it—­that I went in because I knowed what you’d do for me if I didn’t.  And I didn’t dare risk leaving my girl all alone then.  I’ve ‘tended every meetin’, and done everything I agreed, and there ain’t a man here can say I ain’t.”

Some of the men nodded, and “That’s so,” and “You’re right, Jim” came from two or three.

Jim went on, “You know that I voted against it, and tried to stop you when you hung old man Lewis.  I thought then, and I think yet, that it was spite work and not protection; and you know how I was against goin’ for the shepherd, and you went when I didn’t know it.  As for this here bank business, I didn’t even know of it, ’till you give me this stuff here for me to keep for you.  I had to take it ’count of the oath.