e elbow, hand on his gun, displeasure
ready to explode from his mouth. The baggage-man asked advice on
accepting the proffered box, with fare and a half ticket attached as in
the case of a corpse.

The conductor remarked, with terrible sarcasm, that the corpse was the
noisiest one he ever had encountered, even in that cursed and benighted
and seven times outcast hole. He knocked on the box and demanded of the
occupant an account of himself, and the part he was bearing in this
pleasant little episode, this beautiful little joke.

Seth lifted up his muffled voice to say that it was no joke, at least to
him. He explained his identity and denounced his captors, swearing
vengeance to the last eyebrow. The conductor faced the crowd with
disdainful severity.

What were they trying to play off on him, anyhow? Who did they suppose
he was? Maybe that was fun in Ascalon, but his company wasn't going to
carry no man from nowhere against his will and be sued for it. Burn him
and box up the ashes, boil him and bottle the soup; reduce him by any
comfortable means they saw fit, according to their humane way, fetch him
there in any guise but that of a living man, and the company would haul
him to Hades if they billed him to that destination.

But not in his present shape and form; not as a living, swearing,
suit-threatening man. Take him to hell out of there, the conductor
ordered in rising temper. Don't insult him and his road by coming around
there to make them a part in their idle, life-wasting, time-gambling,
blasted to the seventh depth of Hades tricks.

The baggage-man closed the door, the conductor gave the signal to pull
out, and the train departed, leaving Seth Craddock on the truck, the
rather shamed and dampened citizens standing around. They concluded they
would have to hang him, after all their trouble for a more romantic,
picturesque, and unusual exit. And hanging was such a common, ordinary
way of getting rid of a distasteful man that the pleasure was taken out
of their day.

Judge Thayer was firmly against hanging. He ordered the undertaker to
open the box, which he did with fear and trembling, seeing in a future
hour the vengeance of Seth Craddock descending on his solemn head.
Craddock, sweat-drenched and weak from his rebellion and the heat of his
close quarters, sat up with scarcely a breath left in him for a curse.
Judge Thayer delivered him to Morgan, with instructions to lock him up.

The city calaboose wa