He held it up in front of him and every man looked at it.
"You know me," he says.

"You know I do not break my word.

And I promise you that unless you do kill me here tonight--yes, as God is my witness, I THREATEN you--I will spend every dollar I own and every atom of influence I possess to bring each one of you to justice for that man's murder." They knowed, that crowd did, that killing a man like Colonel Buckner--a leader and a big man in that part of the state--was a different proposition from killing a stranger like Doctor Kirby.

The sense of what it would mean to kill Colonel Buckner was sinking into 'em, and showing on their faces.

And no one could look at him standing there, with his determination blazing out of him, and not understand that unless they did kill him as well as Doctor Kirby he'd do jest what he said.
"I told you," he said, not raising his voice, but dropping it, and making it somehow come creeping nearer to every one by doing that, "I told you the first white man you lynched would lead to other lynchings.
Let me show you what you're up against to-night.
"Kill the man and the boy here, and you must kill me.