"Will," he says, very polite and quiet, "can I
trouble you for a match?"
And everybody let go their breath. Some with a
snort, like they knowed they was being trifled with,
and it made 'em sore. His eyebrows goes up agin,
like it was awful impolite in folks to snort that-a-
way, and he is surprised to hear it. And Will, he
digs fur a match and finds her and passes her over.
He lights his cigarette, and he draws a good
inhale, and he blows the smoke out like it done him
a heap of good. He sees something so interesting
in that little cloud of smoke that everybody else
looks at it, too.
"Do I understand," he says, "that some one is
going to lynch some one, or something of that sort?"
"That's about the size of it, colonel," says Will.
"Um!" he says, "What for?"
Then everybody starts to talk all at once, half of
them jumping to their feet, and making a perfect
hullabaloo of explanations you couldn't get no sense
out of. In the midst of which the colonel takes a
chair and sets down and crosses one leg over the
other, swinging the loose foot and smiling very
patient. Which Will remembers he is chairman of
that meeting and pounds fur order.
"Thank you, Will," says the colonel, like getting
order was a personal favour to him. Then Billy
Harden gets the floor, and squares away fur a long-
winded speech telling why.
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