essness was more
than an uneasy stirring. It was an obsession.

He knew that when spring, or at the latest early summer, brought
firmness to the mired highways and deeper cover to the woods, the
organization of which he was a prominent member would strike, and stake
its success or failure upon decisive issue. Then Parish Thornton, and a
handful of lesser designates, would die--or else the "riders" would
encounter defeat and see their leaders go to the penitentiary.

Bas Rowlett, himself a traitor to the Ku Klux, had promised Sim safety,
but Sim had never known Bas to keep faith, and he did not trust him now.

Yet, should he break with the evil forces to which he stood allied,
Sim's peril became only the greater. So he lay awake through these gusty
nights cudgelling his brain for a solution, and at the end, when spring
had come with her first gracious touches of Judas-tree and wild plum
blossoming, he made up his mind.

Sim Squires came to his decision one balmy afternoon and went, with a
caution that could not have been greater had he contemplated murder, to
the house of Hump Doane, when he knew the old man to be alone.

His design, after all, was a simple one for a man versed in the art of
double-crossing and triple-crossing.

If the riders prevailed he was safe enough, by reason of his charter
membership, and none of his brother vigilantes suspected that his
participation had been unwilling. But they might not prevail, and, in
that event, it was well to have a friend among the victors.

He meant, therefore, to tell Hump Doane some things that Hump Doane
wished very much to know, but he would go to the confessional under such
oath of secrecy as could not recoil upon him. Then whoever triumphed, be
it Bas, the white-caps, or the forces of law and order, he would have a
protector on the winning side.

The hunchback met his furtive visitor at the stile and walked with him
back into the chill woods where they were safe from observation. The
drawn face and the frightened eyes told him in advance that this would
be no ordinary interview, yet he was unprepared for what he heard.

When Squires had hinted that he came heavy with tidings of gravest
import, but must be given guarantees of protection before he spoke, Hump
Doane sat reflecting dubiously upon the matter, then he shook his head.
"I don't jest see whar hit profits me ter know things thet I kain't make
no use of," he demurred, and Sim Squires bent forward with