t the sound of
his voice, the constable, who was of sterner stuff than his predecessor,
pushed through them, dragging his man after him.

"Look here, boys," said Hale calmly. "Let's not have any row. Let him go
to the mayor's office. If he isn't guilty, the mayor will let him go. If
he is, the mayor will give him bond. I'll go on it myself. But let's not
have a row."

Now, to the mountain eye, Hale appeared no more than the ordinary man,
and even a close observer would have seen no more than that his face was
clean-cut and thoughtful, that his eye was blue and singularly clear
and fearless, and that he was calm with a calmness that might come from
anything else than stolidity of temperament--and that, by the way, is
the self-control which counts most against the unruly passions of other
men--but anybody near Hale, at a time when excitement was high and a
crisis was imminent, would have felt the resultant of forces emanating
from him that were beyond analysis. And so it was now--the curious power
he instinctively had over rough men had its way.

"Go on," he continued quietly, and the constable went on with his
prisoner, his friends following, still swearing and with their weapons
in their hands. When constable and prisoner passed into the mayor's
office, Hale stepped quickly after them and turned on the threshold with
his arm across the door.

"Hold on, boys," he said, still good-naturedly. "The mayor can attend to
this. If you boys want to fight anybody, fight me. I'm unarmed and you
can whip me easily enough," he added with a laugh, "but you mustn't come
in here," he concluded, as though the matter was settled beyond further
discussion. For one instant--the crucial one, of course--the men
hesitated, for the reason that so often makes superior numbers of no
avail among the lawless--the lack of a leader of nerve--and without
another word Hale held the door. But the frightened mayor inside let the
prisoner out at once on bond and Hale, combining law and diplomacy, went
on the bond.

Only a day or two later the mountaineers, who worked at the brick-plant
with pistols buckled around them, went on a strike and, that night, shot
out the lights and punctured the chromos in their boarding-house. Then,
armed with sticks, knives, clubs and pistols, they took a triumphant
march through town. That night two knives and two pistols were whipped
out by two of them in the same store. One of the Ludlows promptly blew
out the light