before I knew it I was in the
midst of the canvass.

"I held that election would be an indorsement of me, and defeat would be
a censure. After all, it is the indorsement of those about our own home
that we desire.

"The night before the election I spoke to a crowd at Burley's Fork. The
place had changed since Halloway checked Absalom Turnell there. A large
crowd was in attendance. I paid Halloway my personal tribute that night,
and it met with a deep response. I denounced the lynching. There was a
dead silence. I was sure that in my audience were many of the men who
had been in the mob that night.

"When I rode home quite a company started with me.

"The moon, which was on the wane, was, I remember, just rising as we set
ont It was a soft night, rather cloudy, but not dark, for the sad moon
shone a little now and then, looking wasted and red. The other men
dropped off from time to time as we came to the several roads that led
to their homes and at last I was riding alone. I was dead tired and
after I was left by my companions sat loungingly on my horse. My mind
ran on the last canvass and the strange tragedy that had ended it, with
its train of consequences. I was not aware when my horse turned off from
the main road into the by-lane that led through the Halloway place to
my own home. My horse was the same I had ridden that night. I awaked
suddenly to a realization of where I was, and regretted for a second
that I had come by that road. The next moment I put the thought away
as a piece of cowardice and rode on, my mind perfectly easy. My horse
presently broke into a canter and I took a train of thought distinctly
pleasant. I mention this to account for my inability to explain what
followed. I was thinking of old times and of a holiday I had once spent
at Halloway 's when old Joel came through on his way to his wife's
house. It was the first time I remembered ever seeing Joel. I was
suddenly conscious of something white moving on the road before me. At
the same second my horse suddenly wheeled with such violence as to break
my stirrup-leather and almost throw me over his neck. I pulled him up
and turned him back, and there before me, coming along the unused road
up the hill from Hallo way's, was old Joel, sitting in a cart, looking
at me, and bowing to me politely just as he had done that morning on his
way to the gallows; while dangling from the white limb of the sycamore,
swaying softly in the wind, hung the corpse