d at it.

"You know me," he says. "You know I do not break my word. And I promise
you that unless you do kill me here tonight--yes, as God is my witness,
I THREATEN you--I will spend every dollar I own and every atom of
influence I possess to bring each one of you to justice for that man's
murder."

They knowed, that crowd did, that killing a man like Colonel Buckner--a
leader and a big man in that part of the state--was a different
proposition from killing a stranger like Doctor Kirby. The sense of what
it would mean to kill Colonel Buckner was sinking into 'em, and showing
on their faces. And no one could look at him standing there, with his
determination blazing out of him, and not understand that unless they
did kill him as well as Doctor Kirby he'd do jest what he said.

"I told you," he said, not raising his voice, but dropping it, and
making it somehow come creeping nearer to every one by doing that, "I
told you the first white man you lynched would lead to other lynchings.
Let me show you what you're up against to-night.

"Kill the man and the boy here, and you must kill me. Kill me, and you
must kill Old Man Withers, too."

Every one turned toward the door as he mentioned Old Man Withers. He had
never been very far into the room.

"Oh, he's gone," said Colonel Tom, as they turned toward the door, and
then looked at each other. "Gone home. Gone home with the name of every
man present. Don't you see you'd have to kill Old Man Withers too, if
you killed me? And then, HIS WIFE! And then--how many more?

"Do you see it widen--that pool of blood? Do you see it spread and
spread?"

He looked down at the floor, like he really seen it there. He had 'em
going now. They showed it.

"If you shed one drop," he went on, "you must shed more. Can't you see
it--widening and deepening, widening and deepening, till you're wading
knee deep in it--till it climbs to your waists--till it climbs to your
throats and chokes you?"

It was a horrible idea, the way he played that there pool of blood and
he shuddered like he felt it climbing up himself. And they felt it. A
few men can't kill a hull, dern county and get away with it. The way he
put it that's what they was up against.

"Now," says Colonel Tom, "what man among you wants to start it?"

Nobody moved. He waited a minute. Still nobody moved. They all looked
at him. It was awful plain jest where they would have to begin. It was
awful plain jest what it would all end