Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/197



HE overwhelming defeat of their pets in the South, and the toppling of their houses of paper built on Negro supremacy, brought to Congress a sense of guilt and shame, that required action. Their own agents in the South were now in the penitentiary or in exile for well established felonies, and the future looked dark.

They found the scapegoat in these fool later day Ku Klux marauders. Once more the public square at Ham-bright saw the bivouac of the regular troops of the United States Army. The Preacher saw the glint of their bayonets with a sense of relief.

With this army came a corps of skilled detectives, who set to work. All that was necessary, was to arrest and threaten with summary death a coward, and they got all the information he could give. The jail was choked with prisoners and every day saw a squad depart for the stockade at Independence. Sam Worth gave information that led to the immediate arrest of Allan McLeod. He was the first man led into the jail.

The officers had a long conference with him that lasted four hours.

And then the bottom fell out. A wild stampede of young men for the West! Somebody who held the names of every man in the order had proved a traitor.