ef!" said the old man.

"Shet up your jaw. I say he is. Now, your ole man's got to be hung."

"Vot vor?" broke in Gottlieb.

"Bekase it's all your own fault. You hadn't orter be a Dutchman."

Here the crowd fell into a wrangle. It was not so easy to hang a man
when such a woman stood there pleading for him. Besides, Bob Short
insisted that hanging was arsony in the first degree, and they better
not do it. To this Bill Day assented. He said he 'sposed tar and
feathers was only larson in the second degree. And then it would be rale
ludikerous. And now confused cries of "Bring on the tar!" "Where's the
feathers?" "Take off his clothes!" began to be raised. Norman stood out
for hanging. Drink always intensified his meanness. But the tar couldn't
be found. The man whom they had left lying by the roadside with a broken
arm had carried the tar, and had been well coated with it himself in
his fall.

"Ha-oop!" shouted Bill Day. "Let's do somethin'. Dog-on the arsony!
Let's hang him as high as Dan'el."

And with that the rope was thrown over Gottlieb's, neck and he was
hurried off to the nearest tree. The rope was then put over a limb, and
a drunken half-dozen got ready to pull, while Norman Anderson adjusted
the noose and valiant Bill Day undertook to keep off Mrs. Wehle.

"All ready! Pull up! Ha-oop!" shouted Bill Day, and the crowd pulled,
but Mrs. Wehle had slipped off the noose again, and the volunteer
executioners fell over one another in such a way as to excite the
derisive laughter of Bill Day, who thought it perfectly ludikerous. But
before the laugh had finished, the indignant Gottlieb had knocked Bill
Day over and sent Norman after him. The blow sobered them a little, and
suddenly destroyed Bill's ambition to commit "arsony," or do anything
else ludikerous. But Norman was furious, and under his lead Wehle's arms
were now bound with the rope and a consultation was held, during which
little Wilhelmina pleaded for her father effectively, and more by her
tears and cries and the wringing of her chubby hands than by any words.
Bill Day said he be blamed of that little Dutch gal's takin' on so
didn't kinder make him foul sorter scrimpshous you know. But the mob
could not quit without doing something. So it was resolved to give
Gottlieb a good ducking in the river and send him into Kentucky with a
warning not to come back. They went down the ravine past Andrew's castle
to the river. Mrs. Wehle followed, believing that h