Now the chain of lawlessness that had tightened was curious and
significant. There was the tough and his kind--lawless, irresponsible
and possible in any community. There was the farm-hand who had come to
town with the wild son of his employer--an honest, law-abiding farmer.
Came, too, a friend of the farmer who had not yet reaped the crop of
wild oats sown in his youth. Whiskey ran all into one mould. The
farm-hand drank with the tough, the wild son with the farm-hand, and the
three drank together, and got the farmer's unregenerate friend to drink
with them; and he and the law-abiding farmer himself, by and by, took a
drink for old time's sake. Now the cardinal command of rural and
municipal districts all through the South is, "Forsake not your friend":
and it does not take whiskey long to make friends. Jack Woods had given
the tough from the Pocket a whistle.

"You dassen't blow it," said he.

Richards asked why, and Jack told him. Straightway the tough blew the
whistle, and when the little colonel ran down to arrest him he laughed
and resisted, and the wild son and the farm-hand and Jack Woods showed
an inclination to take his part. So, holding his "drop" on the tough
with one hand, the Infant blew vigorously for help with the other.

Logan, the captain, arrived first--he usually arrived first--and Gordon,
the sergeant, was by his side--Gordon was always by his side. He would
have stormed a battery if the captain had led him, and the captain would
have led him--alone--if he thought it was his duty. Logan was as calm as
a stage hero at the crisis of a play. The crowd had pressed close.

"Take that man," he said sharply, pointing to the tough whom the colonel