t Latour would try to serve the writs in spite of me. They
were in his pocket. What a fool I had been not to call for them. My
companion saw the look of concern in my face.

"I don't like that young feller," said Curtis. "He's in fer trouble."

He ran toward his house, which was only a few rods beyond us, while I
started on in pursuit of the two men at top speed. Before my horse had
taken a dozen jumps I heard a horn blowing behind me and its echo in
the hills. Within a half a moment a dozen horns were sounding in the
valleys around me. What a contrast to the quiet in which we had been
riding was this pandemonium which had broken loose in the countryside. A
little ahead I could see men running out of the fields. My horse had
begun to lather, for the sun was hot. My companions were far ahead. I
could not see the dust of their heels now. I gave up trying to catch
them and checked the speed of my horse and went on at a walk. The horns
were still sounding. Some of them seemed to be miles away. About twenty
rods ahead I saw three riders in strange costumes come out of a dooryard
and take the road at a wild gallop in pursuit of Latour and Purvis. They
had not discovered me. I kept as calm as I could in the midst of this
excitement. I remember laughing when I thought of the mess in which "Mr.
Purvis" would shortly find himself.

I passed the house from which the three riders had just turned into the
road. A number of women and an old man and three or four children stood
on the porch. They looked at me in silence as I was passing and then
began to hiss and jeer. It gave me a feeling I have never known since
that day. I jogged along over the brow of a hill when, at a white, frame
house, I saw the center toward which all the men of the countryside were
coming.

Suddenly I heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind me. I stopped, and
looking over my shoulder saw a rider approaching me in the costume of an
Indian chief. A red mask covered his face. A crest of eagle feathers
circled the edge of his cap. Without a word he rode on at my side. I
knew not then that he was the man Josiah Curtis--nor could I at any time
have sworn that it was he.

A crowd had assembled around the house ahead. I could see a string of
horsemen coming toward it from the other side. I wondered what was going
to happen to me. What a shouting and jeering in the crowded dooryard! I
could see the smoke of a fire. We reached the gate. Men in Indian masks
and cost