The sleepy-faced, small-eyed jailer finally opened to us.  The wrinkled skin of the old man hung loosely from his neck.  It wabbled as he talked.

“What the hell’s the mattah with you folks?” protested McAndrews, the night watchman, “slep’ late,” yawned the jailer, “it bein’ Sunday mawhnin’.”

By this time the sheriff, summoned from his house, had joined us.  A big swashbuckler of a man with a hard face, hard blue eyes with quizzical wrinkles around them.  They seemed wrinkles of good humour till you looked closer.

“—­s a damn lie ... you ‘en Jimmy hev bin a-gamblin’ all night,” interjected the sheriff, in angry disgust.

* * * * *

They marched us upstairs.  The whole top floor, was given over to a huge iron cage which had been built in before the putting on of the roof.  A narrow free space—­a sort of corridor, ran all around it, on the outside.

Eager and interested, the prisoners already in the cage pushed their faces against the bars to look at us.  But at the sheriff’s word of command they went into their cells, the latter built in a row within the cage itself, and obediently slammed their doors shut while a long iron bar was shot across the whole length, from without ... then the big door of the cage was opened, and we were thrust in.  The bar was drawn back, liberating the others, then, from their cells.

The posse left.  Our fellow prisoners crowded about us, asking us questions ... what had we done?... and how had we been caught?... and what part of the country were we from?... etc. etc....

From the North ... yes, Yankee ... well, when a fellow was both a Yank and a tramp he was given a short shrift in the South.

They talked much about themselves ... one thing, however, we all held in common ... our innocence ... we were all innocent ... every one of us was innocent of the crime charged against us ... we were just being persecuted.

* * * * *

That afternoon a negro preacher, short and squat, who, innocent, was yet being held for Grand Jury, delivered us a fearful half-chanted sermon on the Judgment Day.  I never heard so moving, compelling a sermon.  I saw the sky glowing like a furnace, the star-touching conflagration of the End of Things rippling up the east in increasing waves of fire, in place of the usual dawn ...  I heard the crying of mankind ... of sinners ... for mountains to topple over on them and cover them from the wrath of the Lord....

* * * * *

“In co’hse I nevah done it,” explained the preacher, “I had some hawgs of mah own.  Mah hawgs had an under-bit an’ an ovah-bit in dere eahs, an’ de ones I’s ‘cused o’ stealin’, dey had only an ovah-bit.  But heah dey’s got me, holdin’ me foh de pen.”

* * * * *

The little grey-faced pickpocket—­caught at his trade at the Dallas Fair, told me how easy it was to add an under-bit to an over-bit to the ears of the two hogs stolen, “Sure that sneakin’ niggah pahson did it,” he averred—­but all the while he likewise averred that he hadn’t picked the pocket of the man from whom he was accused of stealing a wallet....