The first horseman reined in beside the wagon. He tilted his hat upward with the tip of a riding crop then stared with incredulity at Starbuck. “It’s Nate Starbuck! Yes?”

“Yes, sir.” Starbuck was shivering.

“You remember me, Nate? We met in New Haven last year?”

“Of course I remember you, sir.” Starbuck was shaking, but with relief rather than fear. His rescuer was Washington Faulconer, father of Starbuck’s best friend and the man whose name Starbuck had earlier invoked to save himself from this mob’s wrath.

“You seem to be getting a wrong impression of Virginian hospitality,” Washington Faulconer said softly. “Shame on you!” These last words were spoken to the crowd. “We’re not at war with strangers in our city! What are you? Savages?”

“He’s a spy!” The tanner tried to restore the crowd’s supremacy.

Washington Faulconer turned scornfully on the man. “And you’re a black-assed fool! You’re behaving like Yankees, all of you! Northerners might want a mobocracy for a government, but not us! Who is this man?” He pointed with his riding crop at the dentist.

The dentist could not speak, so Starbuck, released from the grip of his enemies and with his trousers safely restored to his waist, answered for his fellow victim. “His name is Burroughs, sir. He’s a dentist passing through town.”

Washington Faulconer glanced about until he saw two men he recognized. “Bring Mister Burroughs to my house. We shall do our best to make reparations to him.” Then, that remonstrance delivered to the shamed crowd, he looked back to Starbuck and introduced his companion, who was a dark-haired man a few years older than Starbuck. “This is Ethan Ridley.” Ridley was leading the riderless horse, which he now urged alongside the wagon bed. “Mount up, Nate!” Washington Faulconer urged Starbuck.

“Yes, sir.” Starbuck stooped for his coat, realized that it was torn beyond repair, so straightened up empty-handed. He glanced at Sam Pearce, who gave a tiny shrug as though to suggest there were no hard feelings, but there were, and Starbuck, who had never known how to control his temper, stepped fast toward the big man and hit him. Sam Pearce twisted away, but not soon enough, and Starbuck’s blow landed on his ear. Pearce stumbled, put a hand out to save himself but only succeeded in plunging the hand deep into the tar vat. He screamed, jerked himself free, but his balance was gone, and he flailed hopelessly as he tripped off the wagon’s outer end to fall with skull-cracking force onto the road. Starbuck’s hand was hurting, stung by the wild and clumsy blow, but the crowd, with the unpredictability of an impassioned mob, suddenly started laughing and cheering him.

“Come on, Nate!” Washington Faulconer was grinning at Pearce’s downfall.