"Don't be skeered, Daddy Withers," says a drawly
voice out of the dark; "we ain't goin' to hurt YOU.
We got a little matter o' business to tend to with
them two fellers yo' totin' to town."
CHAPTER XIX
Thirty men with guns would be consider-
able of a proposition to buck against, so we
didn't try it. They took us out of the
wagon, and they pinted us down the road, steering
us fur a country schoolhouse which was, I judged
from their talk, about a quarter of a mile away.
They took us silent, fur after we found they didn't
answer no questions we quit asking any. We
jest walked along, and guessed what we was up
against, and why. Daddy Withers, he trailed along
behind. They had tried to send him along home,
but he wouldn't go. So they let him foller and
paid no more heed to him.
Sam, he kept a-talking and a-begging, and
several men a-telling of him to shut up. And him
not a-doing it. Till finally one feller says very
disgusted-like:
"Boys, I'm going to turn this nigger loose."
"We'll want his evidence," says another one.
"Evidence!" says the first one. "What's the
evidence of a scared nigger worth?"
"I reckon that one this afternoon was consider-
able scared, when he give us that evidence against
himself--that is, if you call it evidence.
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