STEVE HOYLE had cut down his men and hustled them out of town before eight o’clock, but the news rapidly spread and had thrown the people into a tremor of wonder as to the meaning of the events of the night. Evidently there had been a clash of forces within the ranks of the Invisible Empire. What did it mean?

Steve had lost no time in explaining to the desperadoes from the hills what they wished to know, and they had left with deep muttered curses against their former Commander-in-chief.

The outrage on Nickaroshinski had aroused the fiercest passions between the friends of John Graham and Steve Hoyle. Excited groups stood on every corner and it was with the utmost difficulty that John succeeded finally in dispersing them without a clash.

At one o’clock Larkin called at the old Graham mansion and announced to Aunt Julie Ann his desire to see the Judge.

“Ye can’t see ’im,” was her contemptuous answer.

Larkin had captured Isaac, but his influence had not reached his wife. For any white man who stayed at a Negro’s house her contempt was beyond words. That the house happened to be her husband’s only aggravated the offence.

“I must see him,” urged Larkin.

“He’s in bed sick, I tell ye!”

“But you had’nt told me,” protested the Carpetbagger.

“Well I tells ye now. De Judge ain’t lif’ his head offen de piller ter day. De ghosts wuz here agin las’ night—an’ you’d better be a movin ‘fore Miss Stella find you here. She sick de dog on you.” Larkin took a threatening step toward her and said in low tones:

“Shut your mouth, and tell the Judge I’m here to see him on important business. I’m not going out of this house until I do see him. Tell him so.”

Aunt Julie Ann turned muttering and slowly climbed the stairs to Butler’s room.

In a moment the Judge came down, hastily dressed in a faded slouchy dressing-gown and a pair of bedroom slippers.

“Is it possible,” exclaimed Larkin, “that you know nothing of what’s happened here within the past twenty-four hours?”

“I’ve been sick in bed. Haven’t left the house,” was the nervous reply.

“Well, it’s time you knew at least what is going on in the house.”

The Judge shivered and glanced up into the galleries.

“What do you mean?” he feebly asked.

Larkin rapidly sketched to him the events which had thrown the town into a ferment.

“But what I called for,” observed the Carpetbagger, “was to enquire, as your political adviser, whether you really intend to permit your daughter to receive here to-night this gang of masked cutthroats as your guests?”

The Judge rose trembling.

“My daughter receive the Ku Klux Klan here to-night?” he gasped.

“She has invited them, and in spite of the excitement it is rumoured that they will promptly appear in full costume at ten o’clock.”

“Impossible, Larkin, impossible! They won’t dare such a thing. Besides, of course, my daughter will stop it.”

“How can she stop it? Her invitation was by their sign of the scarlet bow. They have devised no signal to stop such a festival.”

“She must find a way at once,” cried the Judge excitedly, “otherwise we must wire for troops.”

“It’s too late.”

“We’ll order a special if necessary. I’ll call my daughter at once.”

Larkin rose as if to go.

“Wait,” continued the Judge, “I wish you to be present.”

He summoned Maggie, sent for Stella, and picked up his mail lying on the centre table, and opened it with fumbling nervous fingers while awaiting his daughter’s appearance.

The Carpetbagger smiled contemptuously at his lack of good breeding, and studied the room while the Judge read his letters.

“I see here some friend has written me a warning against the dangers of such a meeting,” cried Butler, his beady eyes dancing with excitement. “We must stop it, Larkin, we must stop it!”

Maggie slowly descended the stairs.

“Well, well, where’s your mistress?” spluttered the Judge.

“Miss Stella say she busy tryin’ on a dress an’ she can’t come now.”

Butler turned on Maggie with sudden fury.

“Go back, you little black imp of the devil, and tell her to come down immediately! Immediately, I say!”

“Yassah! Yassah!” Maggie panted. She turned back up the stairs jumping three steps at a time, and fell sprawling across the top landing. She reached Stella’s room gasping for breath.

Stella turned leisurely from her mirror.

“What on earth’s the matter, Maggie?”

“De Jedge say ef you doan come dar dis minute he gwine ter come up here and slap yo head off!”

“As bad as that, Maggie?”

“Yassam. He flung a big book at me an’ hit me right in the head jes case I tell ’im what you say. Didn’t ye hear it?”

Stella continued deliberately curling the ringlets about the edges of her raven hair.

“Go back and tell him I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Yassum. I spec he kill me dis time.”

Stella finished her hair, sat down by the window and read a novel for ten minutes and then slowly descended the stairs.

The Judge sat slouching low in his chair, and Larkin rose with the instinctive impulse of a gentleman on Stella’s appearance.

The girl stared coldly at her father, noted his dressing-gown, turned hastily toward the stairs and began to ascend.

“Excuse me,” she said to him with pointed insolence, “I thought you were waiting to receive me.”

“Look here, my child, I’ve no time for silly nonsense!” the Judge exclaimed, adjusting the folds of his slouchy robe.

“When you have completed your toilet,” she said with a sneering little smile, “I’ll come at once. Please let me know.”

“Stella!” sternly called her father.

The girl continued without turning her head and disappeared on the floor above.

“A stickler for social forms, Larkin,” said the Judge petulantly, rising.

“I see,” said the Carpetbagger with amusement. “I’ll have to humour her. Wait for me. We must stop it.”

When at length the Judge returned and confronted Stella he was unnerved, while she stood staring at him with a hard glitter in her great brown eyes, complete mistress of every faculty she possessed.

“My child,” began Butler, “Larkin tells me that you have invited the Ku Klux raiders to dance here to-night.”

“I have,” was the cool answer.
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