court and subjected them to a good deal
of annoyance and trouble. They had to give bonds, and more troublesome
still, they had to control their boys. Then again the newspapers
published the facts.

In this way Guilford Duncan multiplied his enemies in Cairo. But he had
a deep-seated conviction that it is worth a man's while to make enemies
by doing right. In this matter he had done only right. He had invoked
the law for the protection of a woman, and he had completely
accomplished his purpose. He cared nothing for the revilings that
ensued, but Ober, the man of brains and character who edited the
principal newspaper of the town, took the matter up and made much of it.

"This town is barbaric," he wrote in his editorial columns, "It owes
sincere thanks to Mr. Guilford Duncan for teaching it that law is
supreme, that it is to the law we should appeal in every case of wrong
doing. The parents of the young hoodlums who have been bound over to
keep the peace have long needed this lesson. This newspaper rejoices
that the lesson has been given in so emphatic and conspicuous a manner.
It congratulates its young fellow citizen, Mr. Duncan, upon the quality
of his citizenship, and upon the results of its activity."

Within an hour after that editorial appeared, three columns of
advertisements were angrily withdrawn from Ober's newspaper.

Within the next hour Captain Will Hallam quietly sent in nineteen
columns of advertisements, and wrote to Ober: "Stand by your guns and
I'll stand by you. If the damned fools think they can squelch you or
Duncan in such a case as this, we'll teach them better. Spread my
advertisements all over the paper and send bills to me. Keep it up.
We'll make Cairo a better town to live in, or we'll know why. The thing
to do now is to make a systematic campaign against abuses. Do it with
all your might, and I'll stand by you.

"I'll get Duncan to help you. He's a queer fellow, but he knows how to
use vitriol instead of ink, and it's vitriol we need just now."

In the meanwhile the entire talk of the little city was of Duncan's
activity in haling the hoodlum sons of highly "respectable" parents
before a magistrate, as a consequence of their battle with a "nigger."
On that subject tongues wagged busily, pro and con. The friends of the
aggrieved parents who had been forced to give bonds for the good
behavior of their ill-regulated offspring, indignantly made a "race
issue" of a matter which had nothing