comin'."

Things were coming. The following week "the booming editor"
brought in a printing-press and started a paper. An enterprising
Hoosier soon established a brick-plant. A geologist--Hale's
predecessor in Lonesome Cove--made the Gap his headquarters, and
one by one the vanguard of engineers, surveyors, speculators and
coalmen drifted in. The wings of progress began to sprout, but the
new town-constable soon tendered his resignation with informality
and violence. He had arrested a Falin, whose companions
straightway took him from custody and set him free. Straightway
the constable threw his pistol and badge of office to the ground.

"I've fit an' I've hollered fer help," he shouted, almost crying
with rage, "an' I've fit agin. Now this town can go to hell": and
he picked up his pistol but left his symbol of law and order in
the dust. Next morning there was a new constable, and only that
afternoon when Hale stepped into the Ludlow Brothers' store he
found the constable already busy. A line of men with revolver or
knife in sight was drawn up inside with their backs to Hale, and
beyond them he could see the new constable with a man under
arrest. Hale had not forgotten his promise to himself and he began
now:

"Come on," he called quietly, and when the men turned at the sound
of his voice, the constable, who was of sterner stuff than his
predecessor, pushed through them, dragging his man after him.

"Look here, boys," said Hale calmly. "Let's not have any row. Let
him go to the mayor's office. If he isn't guilty, the mayor will