THE overwhelming defeat of their pets in the South, and the toppling of their houses of paper built on Negro supremacy, brought to Congress a sense of guilt and shame, that required action. Their own agents in the South were now in the penitentiary or in exile for well established felonies, and the future looked dark.

They found the scapegoat in these fool later day Ku Klux marauders. Once more the public square at Ham-bright saw the bivouac of the regular troops of the United States Army. The Preacher saw the glint of their bayonets with a sense of relief.

With this army came a corps of skilled detectives, who set to work. All that was necessary, was to arrest and threaten with summary death a coward, and they got all the information he could give. The jail was choked with prisoners and every day saw a squad depart for the stockade at Independence. Sam Worth gave information that led to the immediate arrest of Allan McLeod. He was the first man led into the jail.

The officers had a long conference with him that lasted four hours.

And then the bottom fell out. A wild stampede of young men for the West! Somebody who held the names of every man in the order had proved a traitor.

Every night from hundreds of humble homes might be heard the choking sobs of a mother saying good-bye in the darkness to the last boy the war had left her old age. When the good-bye was said, and the father, waiting in the buggy at the gate, had called for haste, and the boy was hurrying out with his grip-sack, there was a moan, the soft rush of a coarse homespun dress toward the gate and her arms were around his neck again.

“I can’t let you go, child! Lord have mercy! He’s the last!” And the low pitiful sobs!

“Come, come, now Ma, we must get away from here before the officers are after him!”

“Just a minute!”

A kiss, and then another long and lingering. A sigh, and then a smothered choking cry from a mother’s broken heart and he was gone.

Thus Texas grew into the Imperial Commonwealth of the South.





To save appearance McLeod was removed to Independence with the other prisoners, and in a short time released, with a number of others against whom insignificant charges were lodged.

When he returned to Hambright the people looked at him with suspicion.

“How is it, young man,” asked the Preacher, “that you are at home so soon, while brave boys are serving terms in Northern prisons?”

“Had nothing against me,” he replied.

“That’s strange, when Sam Worth swore that you organised the raid to kill Rufe Lattimore.”

“They didn’t believe him.”

“Well, I’ve an idea that you saved your hide by puking. I’m not sure yet, but information was given that only the man in command of the whole county could have possessed.”

“There were a half-dozen men who knew as much as I did. You mustn’t think me capable of such a thing, Dr. Durham!” protested McLeod with heightened colour.

“It’s a nasty suspicion. I’d rather sec a child of mine transformed into a cur dog, and killed for stealing sheep, than fall to the level of such a man. But only time will prove the issue.”

“I’ve made up my mind to turn over a new leaf,” said McLeod. “I’m sick of rowdyism. I’m going to be a law-abiding, loyal citizen.”

“That’s just what I’m afraid of!” exclaimed the Preacher with a sneer as he turned and left him.

And his fears were soon confirmed. Wit............