The Remittance Man by Ambrose Pratt — Read

Although his enemy was safe in prison, Dr. Culgin was by no means satisfied. It was true that the whole town believed Jan guilty of the offence with which he had been charged, but in order to convict him and keep him in gaol the law required evidence, and of that essential commodity the Doctor and his satellites possessed not a tittle. Nor was there any likelihood of obtaining any. It would have been necessary in that behalf to procure some or one of Jan's fellow-officials in the Union to turn informer and betray Jan. But try as he would, the Doctor could not discover a spy nor a traitor in the Union, and he gritted his teeth as he realised the hopelessness of his desires. He determined, nevertheless, to keep Jan imprisoned as long as possible, and for that purpose he instructed the prosecuting sergeant to apply for a remand.

Two days later Jan was escorted by 50 mounted troopers from the station to the court-house. The police rode through the strikers with cocked revolvers in their hands. Jan walked in their midst with handcuffs on his wrists. The men groaned as they saw him, but made no move. It was a terrible sound, that groan, more terrible to the ears of those who heard it than the thunder of the bar when the storm-driven ocean beat upon the sounding rocks. It rose and fell in threatening reverberations along a double line of swarthy lowering faces that fringed a crowd a hundred deep, which stretched without a break from the lock-up to Jan's point of destination. Jan smiled to hear it, but his guardians shivered, and they grasped the hilts of their revolvers as soldiers might on riding into battle.