you you ever seed."

"I didn't say nothin' agin Ann Marier," squeaked Jim. "I was talkin'
agin the Dutch."

"Well, that'sh all right Ha--oop! Boys, let's do somethin', larson or
arsony or--somethin'."

A bucket of tar and some feathers were bought, for which young Anderson
was made to pay, and Bill Day insisted on buying fifteen feet of rope.
"Bekase," as he said, "arter you git the feathers on the bird, you
may--you may want to help him to go to roosht you know, on a hickory
limb. Ha--oop! Come along, boys; I say let's do somethin' ludikerous, ef
it's nothin' but a little larson."

And so they went galloping down the road, nine drunken fools. For it is
one of the beauties of lynch law, that, however justifiable it may seem
in some instances, it always opens the way to villainous outrages. Some
of my readers will protest that a man was never lynched for the crime of
being a Dutchman. Which only shows how little they know of the intense
prejudice and lawless violence of the early West. Some day people will
not believe that men have been killed in California for being Chinamen.

Of the nine who started, one, the drunkest, fell off and broke his arm;
the rest rode up in front of the cabin of Gottlieb Wehle. I do not want
to tell how they alarmed the mother at her late sewing and dragged
Gottlieb out of his bed. I shudder now when I recall one such outrage to
which I was an unwilling witness. Norman threw the rope round Gottlieb's
neck and declared for hanging. Bill Day agreed. It would be so
ludikerous, you know!

"Vot hash I tun? Hey? Vot vor you dries doo hanks me already, hey?"
cried the honest German, who was willing enough to have the end of the
world come, but who did not like the idea of ascending alone, and in
this fashion.

Mrs. Wehle pushed her way into the mob and threw the rope off her
husband's neck, and began to talk with vehemence in German. For a moment
the drunken fellows hung back out of respect for a woman. Then Bill Day
was suddenly impressed with the fact that the duty of persuading Mrs.
Wehle to consent to her husband's execution devolved upon him.

"Take keer, boys; let me talk to the ole woman. I'll argy the case."

"You can't speak Dutch no more nor a hoss can," squeaked Jeems West.

"Blam'd ef I can't, though. Hyer, ole woman, firshta Dutch?"

"Ya."

"Now," said Bill, turning to the others in triumph, "what did I tell
you? Well, you see, your boy August is a thief."

"He's not a te