"You, Uncle Dick!" he called. "No'th Wilkesboro' wants ye on the telephone."
Wondering mightily at the unexpected summons, the old man hurried to the instrument.
"Hello! Hello!" he roared, in a voice to be heard across the miles.
"Be that you-all, Uncle Dick?" the question came thinly.
"Yep. Who be you?"
"Hit's Dan Hodges. I reckon you-all done hearn 'bout last night."
"Yep. I shore have hearn a heap," Uncle Dick acquiesced, sourly. "I tole ye to quit, the officers air gittin' so a'mightly peart. They hain't no more chance fer a good set o' men to make a run--to say nothin' of a wuthless gang like your'n.... What ye want o' me?"
The reply was explicit enough.
"The hearin' 's to-morrer 'fore the United States Commissioner. Marshal Stone says the bail'll be two thousand dollars, cash or land. They hain't nobody kin put hit up, 'cept you-all, Uncle Dick. An', if ye don't, Ben an' me'll have to lay in jail till Fall. If ye'll he'p me, Uncle Dick, ye know Dan Hodges won't never fail ye."
"That's what I'm afeared on," Uncle Dick retorted, glumly. "I 'most know 'twas you-all an' yer gang kilt thet-thar heifer o' mine in cold blood. Now, the ole man ye've treated dirt is yer las' chance. Wall, cuss ye! I'll come down t'-morrer an' bail ye out--not kase I love ye any, but kase I'm again the revenuers. An' listen 'ere! I'm some old, but I'm some spry yit, ye bet! You-all stop round these parts whar I kin keep an eye on ye till Fall Cote. If ye don't, damn ye!--wall, my ole rifle's bright an' 'iled, an' I'll git ye! Jest remember thet, Dan Hodges: I'll git ye!" And with this grim warning, Uncle Dick slammed the receiver on its hook, and stalked out of the store.
On the following day, he journeyed duly to North Wilkesboro', where, despite the protest of his lawyer, he put up his land as security for the appearance of the two malefactors. Uncle Dick was a consistent conservative. Had the accident of birth made him an English squire, he would have been a stanch Tory, would have held the King's commission on the bench of justices, and would have administered the penalties of the law with exceeding severity against poachers. Having been born in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he staked his property in behalf of two scoundrels, for the sake of an inherited feud against the Federal authority.
Nevertheless, his personal distrust of the men he had thus relieved was made manifest when, immediately after the commitment of the two before the Commissioner, he betook himself to a hardware store, where he bought a forty-one caliber Colt's revolver, with a holster and a box of cartridges. He had given up the habitual carrying of weapons on his seventy-fifth birthday, as unseemly and unnecessary for one of his patriarchal years. Now, he reverted to the use as a measure of prudence.