horrified by the frequent and brief proceedings which left men who had
been too free with their guns or with other people's property hanging
from trees, projecting beams, and other convenient places. The usual
rough justice of the affair did not, in his eyes, mitigate the
offensiveness of its irregularity.

The Santa Fé _Bugle_ at once interviewed him about his plans and
intentions, and Governor Coolidge talked very strongly on the subject
of lynch law. He said that it was entirely wrong, unworthy even of
barbarians, and was not to be endorsed or palliated in either principle
or practice. He deplored the frequency of its operations in New
Mexico, and emphatically declared his intention of stamping it out.

And he took that opportunity to announce that all persons connected
with lynching affairs would be treated as murderers or accessories to
murder.

The editor of _The Bugle_, which was the organ of the opposition,
published every word the Governor said, and then gleefully waited for
something to happen. He did not know what it would be, but he was
perfectly sure there would be something, and that it would be
interesting.

On the night after the interview was published Mrs. Coolidge awoke,
possessed by an uneasy feeling that something unusual was taking place.
They were living then in the ancient adobe "Governor's palace," with
its four-foot walls and its eventful history ante-dating the landing at
Plymouth Rock, and for a half-waking instant she wondered if some
unshriven victim of century-gone enmity and revenge still walked those
old halls or sought its mortal habiliments among the rotting bones in