rough which the light glanced from side to side, a squad of
thin, "razor-back" hogs--now and then worried by gaunt hounds--and
some abused-looking hens, groping about disconsolately in the mire, a
broken-topped buggy with a twisted wheel settling into the mud of the
middle of the road (there was always abundant mud, here, in the dryest
summer), a lowering face sneering from a broken window--Six-Cross-Roads
was forbidding and forlorn enough by day. The thought of what
might issue from it by night was unpleasant, and the legends of the
Cross-Roads, together with an unshapen threat, easily fancied in the
atmosphere of the place, made Miss Sherwood shiver as though a cold
draught had crossed her.

"It is so sinister!" she exclaimed. "And so unspeakably mean! This is
where they live, the people who hate him, is it? The 'White-Caps'?"

"They are just a lot of rowdies," replied Briscoe. "You have your rough
corners in big cities, and I expect there are mighty few parts of any
country that don't have their tough neighborhoods, only Six-Cross-Roads
happens to be worse than most. They choose to call themselves
'White-Caps,' but I guess it's just a name they like to give themselves.
Usually White-Caps are a vigilance committee going after rascalities the
law doesn't reach, or won't reach, but these fellows are not that kind.
They got together to wipe out their grudges--and sometimes they didn't
need any grudge and let loose their deviltries just for pure orneriness;
setting haystacks afire and such like; or, where a farmer had offended
them, they would put on their silly toggery and take him out at midnight
and whip him and plunder his house and chase the horses and cattle into
his corn, maybe. They say the women went with them on their raids."

"And he was the first to try to stop them?"

"Well, you see our folks are pretty long-suffering," Briscoe replied,
apologetically. "We'd sort of got used to the meanness of the
Cross-Roads. It took a stranger to stir things up--and he did. He sent
eight of 'em to the penitentiary, some for twenty years."

As they passed the saloon a man stepped into the doorway and looked at
them. He was coatless and clad in garments worn to the color of dust;
his bare head was curiously malformed, higher on one side than on the
other, and though the buckboard passed rapidly, and at a distance, this
singular lopsidedness was plainly visible to the occupants, lending an
ugly significance to his meagre,