“Three!”

It was a frightful punishment.  The man’s flesh was being stripped from his bones.

“Four!”

“Five!”

The count went on monotonously, for the fellow with the whip swung slowly, putting his whole strength behind every blow.  When it had climbed to eight the prisoner’s body was dripping with blood, his trousers-band was sodden with it.  When it had reached ten he hung suspended by his wrists and only a fierce involuntary muscular reaction answered the caress of the nine lashes.

Forty stripes had been voted as the penalty, but ’Poleon Doret vaulted to the platform, seized the upraised whip, and tore it from the executioner’s hand.  He turned upon the crowd a countenance white with fury and disgust.

“Enough!” he shouted.  “By Gar!  You keel him next!  If you mus’ w’ip somebody, w’ip me; dis feller is mos’ dead.”  He strode to the post and with a slash of his hunting-knife cut McCaskey down.  This action was greeted by an angry yell of protest; there was a rush toward the platform, but ’Poleon was joined by the leader of the posse, who scrambled through the press and ranged himself in opposition to the audience.  The old man was likewise satiated with this torture; his face was wet with sweat; beneath his drooping gray mustache his teeth were set.

“Back up, you hyenas!” he cried, shrilly.  “The show’s over.  The man took his medicine and he took it like a man.  He’s had enough.”

“Gimme the whip.  I’ll finish the job,” some one shouted.

The former speaker bent forward abristle with defiance.

“You try it!” he spat out.  “You touch that whip, and by God, I’ll kill you!” He lent point to this threat by drawing and cocking his six-shooter.  “If you men ain’t had enough blood for one day, I’ll let a little more for you.”  His words ended in a torrent of profanity.  “Climb aboard!” he shrilled.  “Who’s got the guts to try?”

Doret spoke to him shortly, “Dese men ain’t goin’ mak’ no trouble, m’sieu’.”  With that he turned his back and, heedless of the clamor, began to minister to the bleeding man.  He had provided himself with a bottle of lotion, doubtless some antiseptic snatched from the canvas drugstore down the street, and with this he wet a handkerchief; then he washed McCaskey’s lacerated back.  A member of the committee joined him in this work of mercy; soon others came to their assistance, and gradually the crowd began breaking up.  Some one handed the sufferer a drink of whisky, which revived him considerably, and by the time he was ready to receive his upper garments he was to some extent master of himself.

Joe McCaskey accepted these attentions without a word of thanks, without a sign of gratitude.  He appeared to be numbed, paralyzed, by the nervous shock he had undergone, and yet he was not paralyzed, for his eyes were intensely alive.  They were wild, baleful; his roving glance was like poison to the men it fell upon.