DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

CHAPTER XIX
Thirty men with guns would be considerable
of a proposition to buck against, so we
didn't try it. They took us out of the
wagon, and they pinted us down the road, steering
us fur a country schoolhouse which was, I judged
from their talk, about a quarter of a mile away.
They took us silent, fur after we found they didn't
answer no questions we quit asking any. We
jest walked along, and guessed what we was up
against, and why. Daddy Withers, he trailed along
behind. They had tried to send him along home,
but he wouldn't go. So they let him foller and
paid no more heed to him.
Sam, he kept a-talking and a-begging, and
several men a-telling of him to shut up. And him
not a-doing it. Till finally one feller says very
disgusted-like:
"Boys, I'm going to turn this nigger loose."
"We'll want his evidence," says another one.
"Evidence!" says the first one. "What's the
evidence of a scared nigger worth?"
"I reckon that one this afternoon was considerable
scared, when he give us that evidence against
himself--that is, if you call it evidence."
"A nigger can give evidence against a nigger,
and it's all right," says another voice--which it
come from a feller that had a-holt of my wrist on
the left-hand side of me--"but these are white
men we are going to try to-night. The case is too
serious to take nigger evidence. Besides, I reckon
we got all the evidence any one could need. This
nigger ain't charged with any crime himself, and
my idea is that he ain't to be allowed to figure one
way or the other in this thing."