sly into a roll which he thrust out of sight
between a plate-girder of the low cabin and its eaves.

* * * * *

Jerry Black came one Saturday night about that time to the wretched
cabin where he and his wife, a brood of half-clothed children, two
hound-dogs, three cats, and a pig dwelt together--and beat his wife.

For years Jerry had been accustomed to doing precisely the same thing,
not with such monotonous regularity as would have seemed to him
excessive, but with periodical moderation. Between times he was a
shiftless, indulgent, and somewhat henpecked little man of watery eyes,
a mouth with several missing teeth, and a limp in one "sprung leg." But
on semi-annual or quarterly occasions his lordliness of nature asserted
itself in a drunken orgy. Then he went on a "high-lonesome" and whooped
home with all the corked-up effervescence of weeks and months bubbling
in his soul for expression. Then he proved his latent powers by knocking
about the woman and the brattish crew, and if the whole truth must be
told, none of those who felt the weight of his hand were totally
undeserving of what they got.

But on this occasion Jerry was all unwittingly permitting himself to
become a pawn in a larger game of whose rules and etiquette he had no
knowledge, and his domestic methods were no longer to pass uncensored in
the privacy and sanctity of the home.

His woman, seizing up the smallest and dirtiest of her offspring, fled
shrieking bloody murder to the house of the nearest neighbour, followed
by a procession of other urchins who added their shrill chorus to her
predominant solo. When they found asylum and exhibited their bruises,
they presented a summary of accusation which kindled resentment and
while Jerry slept off his spree in uninterrupted calm this indignation
spread and impaired his reputation.

For just such a tangible call to arms the "riders," as they had come to
be termed in the bated breath of terror, had been waiting. It was
necessary that this organization should assert itself in the community
in such vigorous fashion as would demonstrate its existence and
seriousness of purpose.

No offence save arson could make a more legitimate call upon a body of
citizen regulators than that of wife-beating and the abuse of small
children. So it came about that after the wife had forgiven her
indignities and returned to her ascendency of henpecking, which was a
more chronic if a less acut