at any
hour of the day or night. We have positive evidence that there are about
half a dozen too many Abolitionists, and altogether too many free
niggers, in and around Barrington."

"When did you find it out?"

"We've always known it; but we never felt so very much afraid of them
before. I don't mind telling you, although I should not want to post it
on the town pump, that we have had spies out for the last three or four
days."

"That's what I thought you were getting at. But who are they?"

"There's Bud Goble, for one."

"Aw, Great Scott!" exclaimed Dick, and even Rodney looked disgusted. "I
hope you haven't put the least faith in anything that lazy, worthless
fellow has said to you."

"He may be too lazy to earn an honest living, but he is far from
worthless in an emergency like the present," replied the committeeman.
"He is with us all over, and has been very active since these troubles
began."

"I don't see why he should be so very active. He never owned the price
of a pickaninny in his life. But I'll tell you what's a fact, Mr. Riley:
Bud Goble has got something against every Northern man in Barrington and
for miles outside of it, and he will do anything or swear to any number
of lies--"

"Don't you give the Committee of Safety any credit for common-sense or
prudence?" demanded Rodney, who, although he appeared to be listening to
the conversation, was busy thinking over a project that had suddenly
suggested itself to him. "You don't suppose that anything will be done
to these suspected men until they have had a fair trial, do you?"

"That's the idea," said Mr. Riley, with a smile. "Rodney, you have your
share of common-sense, whether the committee have or not."

"A fair trial?" repeated Dick, who was like Marcy Gray in that he never
"pulled in his shingle one inch"; in other words, never backed down from
his principles, no matter who might hear what he had to say about them.
"Who'll try these suspected men? Judge Lynch; who will order them to be
strung up before they can say a word in their own defense. I tell you
such work is all wrong."

"Don't let your excitement run away with your reason, Dick," said Mr.
Riley soothingly. "There's been no innocent person harmed yet, and,
moreover, such a thing never happened in this county."

"No, but it is going on all over the South; and I tell you that there
are plenty of people of the Bud Goble stamp who would do the same thing
right here if they were not