ened a careless tongue, dangerous hints
might be dropped, and over at Coal City a newly elected Commonwealth's
attorney was manifesting a zealous interest in the mystery of those two
dead bodies and all the surrounding facts.

That Halloway knew at least two of their number by sight, if not by
name, was a cloud of menace which hung over all. Since Jerry O'Keefe
and Bud Sellers were in the big man's confidence they as well as
Alexander herself fell into the gang's list of undesirable citizens.

But on the surface of life between Coal City and Shoulder-blade there
was no outward ripple; no hint that fires still smouldered which might
again leap to eruption. Men who had followed Lute and those who had
been enlisted by Bud from time to time "met and made their manners" on
the highway--without evidence of animosity.

Then one day when the early freshness of summer had been sunburned and
freckled into a warmer fullness, a thing happened which stirred the
sleeping dogs.

One of the three men of whom Halloway had disposed at the station and
who bore ugly scars on his face where the cuffs had marked him, became
involved in a boundary dispute with a neighbor, and a shooting affray
followed--in which the neighbor fell wounded.

The assailant was arrested and brought to the Coal City Jail, and as he
was being led hither, Halloway and Jerry O'Keefe, who chanced to be in
town that day, came out of the court-house together.

That coincidence was observed by a lounger in the public square who
had, himself, been an alleged Ku-Klux man, on that memorable day and
night. Out of his own anxieties he began weaving a pattern of fear.

He reasoned that if Halloway dropped a hint into the ear of the
Commonwealth's Attorney that official might go lightly with the
prosecution for shooting and wounding, provided, as an exchange of
courtesies, this prisoner became fully and freely his tool in ferreting
out the larger problem. He might be offered immunity on one
indictment, if, as State's evidence, he made possible a number of true
bills on graver charges.

The man kept Halloway and Jerry under observation until they left town
and satisfied himself that so far they had not talked with the
prosecutor--but that carried no assurance for the future, and several
consultations ensued, in which certain measures were considered which
did not enhance the safety of either Halloway or O'Keefe.

Halloway was less confident as the weeks passed.