The tittle-tattle of the town ran in a different direction when some one discovered that the Racking Roan was tied every day to the rack behind the court-house. Then the gossips were certain that the Yankees were after Mr. Sanders, and his horse was placed close at hand in order to give him an opportunity to escape. Mr. Sanders apparently confirmed this rumour when he told Cephas to take the horse to Clopton's, should he find the animal standing at the rack after sundown.
As Mr. Sanders walked about, or sat on the court-house steps, he wondered if he had made all the arrangements necessary to the scheme he had in view. Hundreds and hundreds of times he went over the ground in his mind, and reviewed every step he had taken, trying to discover if anything had been omitted, or if there were any flaw in the plan he proposed to follow. He had made all his arrangements beforehand. He had made a visit to Malvern, and remained there several days. He had met the Mayor of the city, the Chief of Police, and the latter had casually introduced him to the Chief of the Fire Department.
Mr. Sanders accounted himself very fortunate in making the acquaintance of the Fire Chief, who was what might be termed one of the unreconstructed. He was something more than that, he was an irreconcilable, who would have been glad of an opportunity to take up arms again. This official took an eager interest in the scheme which Mr. Sanders had in view; in fact, as he said himself, it was a personal interest. He invited Mr. Sanders to the head-quarters of the Fire Department.
"I'll tell you why I want you to come," he said. "There's a man in my office, or he will be there when we arrive, who is likely to take as much interest in this thing as I do—he couldn't take more—and I want him to hear your plan. Have you ever heard of Captain Buck Sanford?"
Mr. Sanders paused in the street, and stared at the Fire Chief. "Heard of him? Well, I should say! He's the feller that fights a duel before breakfast to git up an appetite. Well, well! How many men has Buck Sanford winged?"
"Oh, quite a number, but not as many as he gets credit for. He comes in my private office every morning, and he's a great help to me. He was rather down at the heels right after the war, and then I happened to find out that he had a great talent in getting the truth out of criminals. We sometimes arrest a man against whom there is no direct evidence of guilt, and if we didn't have some one skilful enough to make him own up, we could do nothing. Buck always knows whether a fellow is guilty or not, and we turn over the suspects to him, and whatever he says goes. He sits in my office like a piece of furniture, and you'd think he was a wooden man. Now you go down with me, and go over your scheme so that Buck can hear you, and whatever he says do, will be the thing to do."
When Mr. Sanders and the Chief arrived at the head-quarters of the department, and entered the private office, they found a pale and somewhat emaciated young man sitting in a chair, which was leaned against the wall at a somewhat dangerous angle. He was apparently asleep; his eyes were closed, and he held between his teeth a short but handsome pipe. He made no movement whatever when the two entered the room. His hat was on the floor at the side of his chair, and had evidently fallen from his head. If Mr. Sanders had been called on to describe the young man, he would have said that he was a weasly looking creature, half gristle and half ghost. His hands were small and thin, and the skin of his face had the appearance of parchment.
At the request of the Chief, Mr. Sanders went over the details of his plan from beginning to end, and at the close the young man, who had apparently been asleep, remarked in a thin, smooth voice, "Won't it be a fine day for a parade!"
His eyes remained closed; he had not even taken the pipe out of his mouth. There was a silence of many long seconds. But the weasly looking man made no movement, nor did he add anything to his remark. Evidently, he had no more to say.
"Buck is right," said the Chief.
"What does he mean?" Mr. Sanders inquired.
"Why, he means that it will be a fine day for a general turn-out of the department," replied the Chief.
Mr. Sanders reflected a moment, and then made one of his characteristic comments. "Be jigged ef he ain't saved my life!"
"Captain Sanford, this is Mr. Sanders, of Shady Dale," said the Chief, by way of introducing the two men. Both rose, and Mr. Sanders found himself looking into the eyes of one of the most interesting characters that Georgia ever produced. Captain Buck Sanford was one of the last of the knights-errant, the self-constituted champion of all women, old or young, good or bad. He said of himself, with some drollery, that he was one of the scavengers of society, and he declared that the job was important enough to command a good salary.
No man in his hearing ever used the name of a woman too freely without answering for it; and it made no difference whether the woman was rich or poor, good or bad. Otherwise he was the friendliest and simplest of men, as modest as a woman, and entirely unobtrusive. His duel with Colonel Conrad Asbury, one of the most sensational events in the annals of duelling, owing to the fact that the weapons were shot-guns at ten paces, was the result of a remark the Colonel had made about a lady whom Sanford had never seen. But so far as the general public knew, it grew out of the fact that the Colonel had spilled some water on Sanford's pantaloons.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Sanders, "I've heard tell of you many a time, an' I'm right down glad to see you."
"You haven't heard much good of me, I reckon," Captain Sanford remarked.
"Yes; not so very long ago I heard a fine old lady say that if they was more Buck Sanfords, the wimmen would be better off."
A faint colour came into the face of the duellist. "Is that so?" he asked with some eagerness.
"It's jest like I tell you, an' the lady was Lucy Lumsden, the grandmother of this chap that we're tryin' to git out'n trouble."
"I wonder if Tomlin Perdue wouldn't let me into the row?" inquired Captain Sanford. "You see, it's this way: If the boy can't break away, it would be well for a serious accident to happen, and in that case, you'll need a man that's perfectly willing to bear the brunt of such an accident."
"We'll see about that," said Mr. Sanders.
"Suppose it's a rainy day, Buck; what then?" asked the Chief.
"And you a grown man!" exclaimed Mr. Sanford, sarcastically. "Did you ever hear of a false alarm? Or were you at a Sunday-school picnic when it was rung in? Oh, I'm going to get a blacksmith and have your head worked on," and with that, Captain Buck Sanford turned on his heel and went out.
"I know Buck was pleased with your plan," the Chief declared. "He nodded at me a time or two when you wasn't looking. If you can work him into the row, it will tickle him mightily. He ain't flighty; he never gets mad; and he always knows just what to do, and when to shoot."
Thus, long before he became impatient enough to walk the streets, or seek consolation on the court-house steps, which he called his liquor-post, Mr. Sanders had made all the arrangements necessary to the success of his scheme. He had sent a suit of clothes to a friend in Malvern, he had shipped three bales of cotton to the firm of Vardeman & Stark, who had been informed of the use to which Mr. Sanders desired to put it; he had hired an ox-cart, and made a covered waggon of it; and the yoke of oxen he proposed to use had been driven through the country and were now at Malvern.
In short, no matter how deeply Mr. Sanders might ponder over the matter, there was nothing he could think of to add to the details of the arrangement that he had already made.
One morning, while Nan, who was on her way to borrow a book from Eugenia Claiborne, was leaning on the court-house fence talking to Mr. Sanders, Tasma Tid cried out, "Yonner dee come! yonner dee come!" The African, who had heard the rumour that the Yankees were after Mr. Sanders, concluded that this was the advance guard, and she therefore sounded the alarm. But only a solitary rider was in sight, and he was coming as fast as a tired horse could fetch him. By the time this rider had reached the public square, Mr. Sanders had mounted the Racking Roan, and was awaiting him. The rider was no other than Colonel Blasengame, who had insisted on bringing the message himself.
He was the bearer of a telegram addressed to Major Perdue. "Consignment will be shipped to-morrow night. Reach Malvern next morning. Invoice by mail." This was signed by the firm of factors with whom Meriwether Clopton had had dealings for many years. It was the form of announcement that had been agreed on, and to Mr. Sanders the message read, "The prisoners will go to Atlanta to-morrow night, and they will reach Malvern the next morning. This information can be relied on."
"It's a joy to see you, Colonel," cried Mr. Sanders. "One more day of waitin' would 'a' pulled the rivets out. You know Miss Nan Dorrington, don't you, Colonel Blasengame? I lay you used to dandle her on your knee when she was a baby."
The Colonel bowed lower to Nan than if she had been a queen. "You are not to go to the tavern," remarked Mr. Sanders. "Meriwether Clopton wants the messenger to go straight to his house, an' he'll be all the gladder bekaze it's you. Gus Tidwell will drive you home in his buggy in the cool of the evenin', an' you can leave your hoss at Clopton's for a day or two. Ef you see Tidwell, Nan, please tell him that the Colonel is at Clopton's. I reckon you'll be willin' to buss me, honey, the next time you see me."
"If you have earned it, Mr. Sanders," said Nan, trying to smile.
Thereupon, Mr. Sanders waved his hand miscellaneously, as he would have described it, and moved away at a clipping gait, stirring up quite a cloud of dust as he went. He reached Halcyondale, and at once sought out Major Tomlin Perdue, and found that a telegram had already been sent to Captain Buck Sanford, whose prompt reply over the wire had been. "All skue vee," which was as satisfactory as any other form of reply would have been—more so, perhaps, for it showed that the Captain was in high good-humour.
Mr. Tidwell and Colonel Blasengame arrived in time to eat a late supper, and the next morning found them all ready to take the train for Malvern. Major Perdue and Mr. Sanders were in high feather. Somehow their spirits always rose when a doubtful issue was to be faced. On the other hand, Colonel Blasengame and Mr. Tidwell were somewhat thoughtful—the Colonel because he had an idea that they were trying to "crowd him into a back seat," as he expressed it, and Mr. Tidwell because it had occurred to him that his presence might tend to jeopardise the case of his son. They were not gloomy; on the contrary they were cheerful; but their spirits failed to run as high as those of Mr. Sanders and Major Perdue, who were engaged all the way to Malvern in relating anecdotes and narrating humourous stories. It seemed that everything either one of them said reminded the other of a story or a humourous incident, and they kept the car in a roar until Malvern was reached.
Mr. Sanders did not go at once to the hotel, but turned his attention to the various details which he had arranged for. Mr. Tidwell went to the hotel opposite the railway station, while Major Perdue and Colonel Blasengame, for obvious reasons, went to the rival hotel. There they found Captain Buck Sanford lounging about with a Winchester rifle slung across his shoulder. A great many people were interested when this pale and weary-looking little man appeared in public with a gun in his hands, and he was compelled to answer many questions in regard to the event. To all he made the same reply, namely, that he had been out practising at a target.
"I'm getting so I can't miss," he said to Major Perdue. "I wasted twenty-four cartridges trying to miss the bull's eye, but I couldn't do it. I don't know what to make of it," he complained. "There must be something wrong with me. That kind of shooting don't look reasonable. I'm afraid something is going to happen to me. It may be a sign that I'm going to fall over a cellar-door and break my neck, or tumble downstairs and injure my spine."
Then he left his gun with a clerk in the hotel, and, taking Major Perdue by the arm, went into a corner and discussed the scheme which Mr. Sanders had mapped out. They were joined presently by Colonel Blasengame; and as they sat there, whispering together, and making many emphatic gestures, they were the centre of observation, and word went around that some personal difficulty, in which these noted men were to act together, was imminent.