terature and
advanced thought. He had traveled some in his youth, and was looked up
to in the county as an authority on all subjects connected with the
outer world. At first an ardent supporter of the Union, he had opposed
the secession movement in his native State as long as opposition availed
to stem the tide of public opinion. Yielding at last to the force of
circumstances, he had entered the Confederate service rather late in the
war, and served with distinction through several campaigns, rising in
time to the rank of colonel. After the war he had taken the oath of
allegiance, and had been chosen by the people as the most available
candidate for the office of sheriff, to which he had been elected
without opposition. He had filled the office for several terms, and was
universally popular with his constituents.

Colonel or Sheriff Campbell, as he was indifferently called, as the
military or civil title happened to be most important in the opinion of
the person addressing him, had a high sense of the responsibility
attaching to his office. He had sworn to do his duty faithfully, and he
knew what his duty was, as sheriff, perhaps more clearly than he had
apprehended it in other passages of his life. It was, therefore, with no
uncertainty in regard to his course that he prepared his weapons and
went over to the jail. He had no fears for Polly's safety.

The sheriff had just locked the heavy front door of the jail behind him
when a half dozen horsemen, followed by a crowd of men on foot, came
round a bend in the road and drew near the jail. They halted in front of
the picket fence that surrounded the building, while several of the
committee of arrangements rode on a few rods farther to the sheriff's
house. One of them dismounted and rapped on the door with his
riding-whip.

"Is the sheriff at home?" he inquired.

"No, he has just gone out," replied Polly, who had come to the door.

"We want the jail keys," he continued.

"They are not here," said Polly. "The sheriff has them himself." Then
she added, with assumed indifference, "He is at the jail now."

The man turned away, and Polly went into the front room, from which she
peered anxiously between the slats of the green blinds of a window that
looked toward the jail. Meanwhile the messenger returned to his
companions and announced his discovery. It looked as though the sheriff
had learned of their design and was preparing to resist it.

One of them stepped forwar