feeling it had not known since the civil war, when,
on occasion, it had set out to hang half a dozen
"Knights of the Golden Circle." Joe had been
hissed on the street many times since the inimical
clerk had whistled at him. Probably demonstrations
of that sort would have continued had he
remained in Canaan; but for almost a month he
had been absent and his office closed, its threshold
gray with dust. There were people who believed
that he had run away again, this time never to
return; among those who held to this opinion being
Mrs. Louden and her sister, Joe's step-aunt. Upon
only one point was everybody agreed: that twelve
men could not be found in the county who could
be so far persuaded and befuddled by Louden
that they would dare to allow Happy Fear to
escape. The women of Canaan, incensed by the
terrible circumstance of the case, as the Tocsin
colored it--a man shot down in the act of begging
his enemy's forgiveness--clamored as loudly as
the men: there was only the difference that the
latter vociferated for the hanging of Happy; their
good ladies used the word "punishment."

And yet, while the place rang with condemnation
of the little man in the jail and his attorney,
there were voices, here and there, uplifted on the
other side. People existed, it astonishingly
appeared, who LIKED Happy Fear. These were for the
greater part obscure and even darkling in their