e.

Sometimes, too, it was not only a song but an actual sight as well,
which made the flesh creep along the scalp. Sometimes out of the
distances came, first low and faint, then swelling into fulness that
chorus of male voices along the breeze, and after it came the sight of
a long serpent of light crawling the highways.

Through doors opened only to slits wondering eyes peered out into the
blackness while that mysterious procession passed, seemingly an endless
line of torches shining on black horsemen riding in single file.

When the singing ended and the night-riders went in silence they were
even more awe-inspiring and ghost-like than before--and, except by
remembering that the man of the house was absent, no woman could guess
who any member of the train might be, for they passed with hat brims
bent low and black masks coming down to their black slickers, and even
their horses were swathed in flowing coverings of the same inky
disguise. They were torch-lit silhouettes riding the night, but when
they passed, those who saw them knew that some task was being
accomplished in which the law had failed and that somewhere black dread
would deservedly strike.

Kinnard Towers himself, racking his brain, took a less romantic view,
but one of equal concern.

"Hit's done got beyond a hurtful pest now," he grumbled to Black Tom as
the two of them sat over their pipes. "Ther longer he goes on unchecked
ther more an' more fools will flock ter him. He's gittin' ther _people_
behind him an' hit's a-spreadin' like hawg cholera amongst young
shoats."

"Does ye 'low they're all Stacys--or air thar some of our own kin mixed
in with 'em?" queried Tom anxiously, and because he, too, had been
pondering that vexing question, the Towers leader shook his head
moodily.

"Thar hain't no possible way of tellin'. They seems ter possess a means
of smellin' a man thet hain't genu-_wine_ly fer 'em an' sich-like
kain't git inter no meetin's ter find out nothin'."

He puffed out a cloud of smoke and sought to comfort himself with
specious optimism. "I reckon folks is misled as ter numbers, though. A
few folks ridin' in ther night-time with noise an' torches looks like a
whole passel."

"They acts like a whole passel, too," supplemented Black Tom, who had a
blunt and unrelieved fashion of speaking his mind. "What does ye aim
ter do erbout hit all?"

The florid man brought his great fist down on the table and his
bull-like neck swelled with