THE hot days dragged on. Dan and his father moved down to the shops. Two cots were placed in the pattern-room, where they slept, and where Roger Oakley spent most of his time reading his Bible or in brooding over the situation. Their meals were brought to them from the hotel. It was not that Dan suspected the men of any sinister intentions, but he felt it was just as well that they should understand the utter futility of any lawlessness, and, besides, his father was much happier in the solitude of the empty shops than he could have been elsewhere in Antioch. All day long he followed McClintock about, helping with such odd jobs as were necessary to keep the machinery in perfect order. He was completely crushed and broken in spirit He had aged, too.
At the office Dan saw only Holt and McClintock. Sick of Kerr's presence, and exasperated at his evident sympathy for the strikers—a sympathy he was at no pains to conceal—he had laid him off, a step that was tantamount to dismissal. Miss Walton was absent on her vacation, which he extended from week to week. It was maddening to him to have her around with nothing to do, for he and Holt found it difficult to keep decently busy themselves, now the shops had closed.
Holloway, the vice-president of the road, visited Antioch just once during the early days of the strike. He approved—being of an approving disposition—of all Oakley had done, and then went back home to Chicago, after telling him not to yield a single point in the fight.
“We've got to starve 'em into submission,” said this genial soul. “There's nothing like an empty stomach to sap a man's courage, especially when he's got a houseful of hungry, squalling brats. I don't know but what you'd better arrange to get in foreigners. Americans are too independent.”
But Oakley was opposed to this. “The men will be glad enough to accept the new scale of wages a little later, and the lesson won't be wasted on them.”
“Yes, I know, but the question is, do we want 'em? I wish Cornish was here. I think he'd advise some radical move. He's all fight.”
Oakley, however, was devoutly thankful that the general was in England, where he hoped he would stay. He had no wish to see the men ruined. A wholesome lesson would suffice. He was much relieved when the time arrived to escort Holloway to his train.
All this while theHeraldcontinued its attacks, but Dan no longer minded them. Nothing Ryder could say could augment his unpopularity. It had reached its finality. He never guessed that, indirectly at least, Constance Emory was responsible for by far the greater part of Ryder's present bitterness. She objected to his partisanship of the men, and this only served to increase his verbal intemperance. But, in spite of the antagonism of their views, they remained friends. Constance was willing to endure much from Ryder that she would have resented from any one else. She liked him, and she was sorry for him; he seemed unhappy, and she imagined he suffered as she herself suffered, and from the same cause. There was still another motive for her forbearance, which, perhaps, she did not fully realize. The strike and Oakley had become a mania with the editor, and from him she was able to learn what Dan was doing.
The unpopularity of his son was a source of infinite grief to Roger Oakley. The more so as he took the burden of it on his own shoulders. He brooded over it until presently he decided that he would have a talk with Ryder and explain matters to him, and ask him to discontinue his abuse of Dan. There was a streak in the old convict's mind which was hardly sane, for no man spends the best years of his life in prison and comes out as clear-headed as he goes in.
As he pottered about the shops with McClintock, he meditated on his project. He was sure, if he could show Ryder where he was wrong and unfair, he would hasten to make amends. It never occurred to him that Ryder had merely followed in the wake of public opinion, giving it definite expression.
One evening—and he chose the hour when he knew Antioch would be at supper and the streets deserted—he stole from the shops, without telling Dan where he was going, as he had a shrewd idea that he would put a veto on his scheme did he know of it.
With all his courage his pace slackened as he approached theHeraldoffice. He possessed unbounded respect for print, and still greater respect for the man who spoke in print.
The door stood open, and he looked in over the top of his steel-bowed spectacles. The office was dark and shadowy, but from an inner room, where the presses stood, a light shone. While he hesitated, the half-grown boy who was Griff's chief assistant came from the office. Roger Oakley placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Is Mr. Ryder in, sonny?” he asked.
“Yes, he's in the back room, where you see the light.”
“Thank you.”
He found Ryder busy making up, by the light of a single dingy lamp, for theHeraldwent to press in the morning. Griff gave a start of surprise when he saw who his visitor was; then he said, sharply, “Well, sir, what can I do for you?”
It was the first time the old convict and the editor had met, and Roger Oakley, peering over his spectacles, studied Ryder's face in his usual slow fashion. At last he said: “I hope I am not intruding, Mr. Ryder, for I'd like to speak with you.”
“Then be quick about it,” snapped Griff. “Don't you see I'm busy?”
With the utmost deliberation the old convict took from his pocket a large red-and-yellow bandanna handkerchief. Then he removed his hat and wiped his face and neck with elaborate thoroughness. When he finally spoke he dropped his voice to an impressive whisper. “I don't think you understand Dannie, Mr. Ryder, or the reasons for the trouble down at the shops.”
“Don't I? Well, I'll be charmed to hear your explanation.” And he put down the rule with which he had been measuring one of the printed columns on the table before him.
Without being asked Roger Oakley seated himself in a chair by the door. He placed his hat and handkerchief on a corner of the table, and took off his spectacles, which he put into their case. Ryder watched him with curious interest.
“I knew we could settle this, Mr. Ryder,” said he, with friendly simplicity. “You've been unfair to my son. That was because you did not understand. When you do, I am certain you will do what you can to make right the wrong you have done him.”
A vicious, sinister smile wreathed Ryder's lips. He nodded. “Go on.”
“Dannie's done nothing to you to make you wish to hurt him—for you are hurting him. He don't admit it, but I know.”
“I hope so,” said Ryder, tersely. “I should hate to think my energy had been entirely wasted.”
A look of pained surprise crossed Roger Oakley's face. He was quite shocked at the unchristian feeling Griff was displaying. “No, you don't mean that!” he made haste to say. “You can't mean it.”
“Can't I?” cynically.
Roger Oakley stole a glance from under his thick, bushy eyebrows at the editor. He wondered if an apt quotation from the Scriptures would be of any assistance. The moral logic with which he had intended to overwhelm him had somehow gone astray-He presented the singular spectacle of a man who was in the wrong, and who knew he was in the wrong and was yet determined to persist in it.
“There's something I'll tell you that I haven't told any one else.” He glanced again at Ryder to see the effect of the proposed confidence, and again the latter nodded for him to go on.
“I am going away. I haven't told my son yet, but I've got it all planned, and when I am gone you won't have any reason to hate Dannie, will you?”
“That's an admirable idea, Mr. Oakley, and if Dannie, as you call him, has half your good-sense he'll follow your example.”
“No; he can't leave. He must stay. He's the manager of the road,” with evident pride. “He's got to stay, but I'll go. Won't that do just as well?” a little anxiously, for he could not fathom the look on Ryder's dark face. Ryder only gave him a smile in answer, and he continued, hurriedly:
“You see, the trouble's been about me and my working in the shops. If I hadn't come here there'd have been no strike. As for Dannie, he's made a man of himself. You don't know, and I don't know, how hard he's worked and how faithful he's been. What I've done mustn't reflect on him. It all happened when he was a little boy—so high,” extending his hand.
“Mr. Oakley,” said Ryder, coldly and insultingly, “I propose, if I can, to make this town too hot to hold your son, and I am grateful to you for the unconscious compliment you have paid me by this visit.”
“Dannie don't know I came,” quickly.
“No, I don't suppose he does. I take it it was an inspiration of your own.”
Roger Oakley had risen from his seat.
“What's Dannie ever done to you?” he asked, with just the least perceptible tremor in his tones.
Ryder shrugged his shoulders. “We don't need him in Antioch.”
The old man mastered his wrath, and said, gently:
“You can't afford to be unfair, Mr. Ryder. No one can afford to be unfair. You are too young a man to persevere in what you know to be wrong.”
To maintain his composure required a great effort. In the riotous days of his youth he had concluded most arguments in which he had become involved with his fists. Aged and broken, his religion overlay his still vigorous physical strength but thinly, as a veneer. He squared his massive shoulders and stood erect, like a man in his prime, and glowered heavily on the editor.
“I trust you have always been able to make right your guiding star,” retorted Ryder, jeeringly. The anger instantly faded from the old convict's face. He was recalled to himself.
Ordinarily, that is, in the presence of others, Ryder would have felt bound to treat Roger Oakley with the deference due to his years. Alone, as they were, he was restrained by no such obligation. He was in an ugly mood, and he proceeded to give it rein.
“I wish to hell you'd mind your own business,” he said, suddenly. “What do you mean by coming here to tell me what I ought to do? If you want to know, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to hound you and that precious son of yours out of this part of the country.”
The old man straightened up again as Ryder spoke. The restraint of years dropped from him in a twinkling. He told him he was a scoundrel, and he prefaced it with an oath—a slip he did not notice in his excitement.
“Hey! What's that?”
“You're a damned scoundrel!” repeated Roger Oakley, white with rage. He took a step around the table and came nearer the editor. “I don't know but what I ought to break every bone in your body! You are trying to ruin my son!” He hit the table a mighty blow with his clinched fist, and, thrusting his head forward, glared into Ryder's face.
“You have turned his friends against him. Why, he ain't got none left any more. They have all gone over to the other side; and you done it, you done it, and it's got to stop!”
Ryder had been taken aback for the moment by Roger Oakley's fierce anger, which vibrated in his voice and flashed in his dark, sunken eyes.
“Get out of here,” he shouted, losing control of himself. “Get out or, damn you, I'll kick you out!”
“When I'm ready to go I'll leave,” retorted the old man, calmly, “and that will be when I've said my say.”
“You'll go now,” and he shoved him in the direction of the door. The shove was almost a blow, and as it fell on his broad chest Roger Oakley gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry and struck out with his heavy hand. Ryder staggered back, caught at the end of the table as he plunged past it, and fell his length upon the floor. The breath whistled sharply from the old man's lips. “There,” he muttered, “you'll keep your hands off!”
Ryder did not speak nor move. All was hushed and still in the room. Suddenly a nervous chill seized the old convict. He shook from head to heel.
“I didn't mean to hit you,” he said, speaking to the prostrate figure at his feet. “Here, let me help you.”
He stooped and felt around on the floor until he found Ryder's hand. He released it instantly to take the lamp from the table. Then he knelt beside the editor. In the corner where the latter lay stood a rusty wood-stove. In his fall Griff's head had struck against it.
The lamp shook in Roger Oakley's hand like a leaf in a gale. Ryder's eyes were open and seemed to look into his own with a mute reproach. For the rest he lay quite limp, his head twisted to one side. The old man felt of his heart. One or two minutes elapsed. His bearing was one of feverish intensity. He heard three men loiter by on the street, and the sound of their footfalls die off in the distance, but Ryder's heart had ceased to beat. Fully convinced of this, he returned the lamp to the table and, sitting down in the chair by the door, covered his face with his hands and sobbed aloud.
Over and over he murmured: “I've killed him, I've killed him! Poor boy! poor boy! I didn't goto do it!”
Presently he got up and made a second examination. The man was dead past every doubt. His first impulse was to surrender himself to the town marshal, as he had done once before under similar circumstances.
Then he thought of Dan.
No, he must escape, and perhaps it would never be known who had killed Ryder. His death might even be attributed to an accident. In his excitement he forgot the boy he had met at the door. That incident had passed entirely from his mind, and he did not remember the meeting until days afterwards.
He had been utterly indifferent to his own danger, but now he extinguished the lamp and made his way cautiously into the outer room and peered into the street. As he crouched in the darkness by the door he heard the town bell strike the hour. He counted the strokes. It was eight o'clock. An instant later and he was hurrying down the street, fleeing from the ghastly horror of the white, upturned face, and the eyes, with their look of mute reproach.
When he reached the railroad track at the foot of Main Street, he paused irresolutely.
“If I could see Dannie once more, just once more!” he muttered, under his breath; but he crossed the tracks with a single, longing look turned towards the shops, a black blur in the night a thousand yards distant.
Main Street became a dusty country road south of the tracks. He left it at this point and skirted a cornfield, going in the direction of the creek.
At the shops Dan had waited supper for his father until half-past seven, when he decided he must have gone up-town, probably to the Joyces'. So he had eaten his supper alone. Then he drew his chair in front of an open window and lighted his pipe. It was very hot in the office, and by-and-by he carried his lamp into the pattern-room, where he and his father slept. He arranged their two cots, blew out the light, which seemed to add to the heat, partly undressed, and lay down. He heard the town bell strike eight, and then the half-hour. Shortly after this he must have fallen asleep, for all at once he awoke with a start. From off in the night a confusion of sounds reached him. The town bell was ringing the alarm. At first he thought it was a fire, but there was no light in the sky, and the bell rang on and on.
He got up and put on his coat and hat and started out.
It was six blocks to theHeraldoffice, and as he neared it he could distinguish a group of excited, half-dressed men and women where they clustered on the sidewalk before the building. A carriage was standing in the street.
He elbowed into the crowd unnoticed and unrecognized. A small boy, who had climbed into the low boughs of a maple-tree, now shouted in a perfect frenzy of excitement: “Hi! They are bringing him out! Jimmy Smith's got him by the legs!”
At the same moment Chris. Berry appeared in the doorway. The crowd stood on tiptoe, breathless, tense, and waiting.
“Drive up a little closter, Tom,” Berry called to the man in the carriage. Then he stepped to one side, and two men pushed past him carrying the body of Ryder between them. The crowd gave a groan.
RYDER'S murder furnished Antioch with a sensation the like of which it had not known in many a day. It was one long, breathless shudder, ramified with contingent horrors.
Dippy Ellsworth remembered that when he drove up in his cart on the night of the tragedy to light the street lamp which stood on the corner by theHeraldoffice his horse had balked and refused to go near the curb. It was generally conceded that the sagacious brute smelled blood. Dippy himself said he would not sell that horse for a thousand dollars, and it was admitted on all sides that such an animal possessed a value hard to reckon in mere dollars and cents.
Three men recalled that they had passed theHeraldoffice and noticed that the door stood open. Within twenty-four hours they were hearing groans, and within a week, cries for help, but they were not encouraged.
Of course the real hero was Bob Bennett, Ryder's assistant, who had discovered the body when he went back to the office at half-past eight to close the forms. His account of the finding of Ryder dead on the floor was an exceedingly grizzly narrative, delightfully conducive of the shivers. He had been the quietest of youths, but two weeks after the murder he left for Chicago. He said there might be those who could stand it, but Antioch was too slow for him.
Not less remarkable was Ryder's posthumous fame. Men who had never known him in life now spoke of him with trembling voices and every outward evidence of the sincerest sorrow. It was as if they had sustained a personal loss, for his championship of the strike had given him a great popularity, and his murder, growing out of this championship, as all preferred to believe, made his death seem a species of martyrdom.
Indeed, the mere fact that he had been murdered would have been sufficient to make him popular at any time. He had supplied Antioch with a glorious sensation. It was something to talk over and discuss and shudder at, and the town was grateful and happy, with the deep, calm joy of a perfect emotion.
It determined to give him a funeral which should be creditable alike to the cause for which he had died and to the manner of his death. So widespread was the feeling that none should be denied a share in this universal expression of respect and grief that Jeffy found it easy to borrow five pairs of trousers, four coats, and a white vest to wear to the funeral; but, in spite of these unusual preparations, he was unable to be present.
Meanwhile Dan had been arrested, examined, and set at liberty again, in the face of the prevailing sentiment that he should be held. No one doubted—he himself least of all—that Roger Oakley had killed Ryder. Bob Bennett recalled their meeting as he left the office to go home for supper on the night of the murder, and a red-and-yellow bandanna handkerchief was found under the table which Dan identified as having belonged to his father.
Kenyon came to Antioch and made his re-election almost certain by the offer of a reward of five hundred dollars for the arrest and conviction of the murderer. This stimulated a wonderful measure of activity. Parties of men and boys were soon scouring the woods and fields in quest of the old convict.
The day preceding that of the funeral a dusty countryman, on a hard-ridden plough-horse, dashed into town with the news that a man who answered perfectly to the description of Roger Oakley had been seen the night before twenty-six miles north of Antioch, at a place called Barrow's Saw Mills, where he had stopped at a store and made a number of purchases. Then he had struck off through the woods. It was also learned that he had eaten his breakfast the morning after the murder at a farmhouse midway between Antioch and Barrow's Saw Mills. The farmer's wife had, at his request, put up a lunch for him. Later in the day a man at work in a field had seen and spoken with him.
There was neither railroad, telegraph, nor telephone at Barrow's Saw Mills, and the fugitive had evidently considered it safe to venture into the place, trusting that he was ahead of the news of his crime. It was on the edge of a sparsely settled district, and to the north of it was the unbroken wilderness stretching away to the lakes and the Wisconsin line.
The morning of the funeral an extra edition of theHeraldwas issued, which contained a glowing account of Ryder's life and achievements. It was an open secret that it was from the gifted pen of Kenyon. This notable enterprise was one of the wonders of the day. Everybody wanted aHeraldas a souvenir of the occasion, and nearly five hundred copies were sold.
All that morning the country people, in unheard-of numbers, flocked into town. As Clarence remarked to Spide, it was just like a circus day. The noon train from Buckhom Junction arrived crowded to the doors, as did the one-o'clock train from Harrison. Antioch had never known anything like it.
The funeral was at two o'clock from the little white frame Methodist church, but long before the appointed hour it was crowded to the verge of suffocation, and the anxious, waiting throng overflowed into the yard and street, with never a hope of wedging into the building, much less securing seats.
A delegation of the strikers, the Young Men's Kenyon Club, of which Ryder was a member, and a representative body of citizens escorted the remains to the church. These were the people he had jeered at, whose simple joys he had ridiculed, and whose griefs he had made light of, but they would gladly have forgiven him his sarcasms even had they known of them. He had become a hero and a martyr.
Chris Berry and Cap Roberts were in charge of the arrangements. On the night of the murder the former had beaten his rival to theHeraldoffice by exactly three minutes, and had never left Ryder until he lay in the most costly casket in his shop.
It was admitted afterwards by thoughtful men, who were accustomed to weigh their opinions carefully, that Mr. Williamson, the minister, had never delivered so moving an address, nor one that contained so obvious a moral. The drift of his remarks was that the death of their brilliant and distinguished fellow-townsman should serve as a warning to all that there was no time like the present in which to prepare for the life everlasting. He assured his audience that each hour of existence should be devoted to consecration and silent testimony; otherwise, what did it avail? It was not enough that Ryder had thrown the weight of his personal influence and exceptional talents on the side of sound morality and civic usefulness. And as he soared on from point to point, his hearers soared with him, and when he rounded in on each well-tried climax, they rounded in with him. He never failed them once. They always knew what he was going to say before it was said, and were ready for the thrill when the thrill was due. It might have seemed that Mr. Williamson was paid a salary merely to make an uncertain hereafter yet more uncomfortable and uncertain, but Antioch took its religion hot, with a shiver and a threat of blue flame.
When Mr. Williamson sat down Mr. Kenyon rose. As a layman he could be entirely eulogistic. He was sure of the faith which through life had been the guiding star of the departed. He had seen it instanced by numerous acts of eminently Christian benevolence, and on those rare occasions when he had spoken of his hopes and fears he had, in spite of his shrinking modesty, shown that his standards of Christian duty were both lofty and consistent.
Here the Hon. Jeb Barrows, who had been dozing peacefully, awoke with a start, and gazed with wide, bulging eyes at the speaker. He followed Mr. Kenyon, and, though he tried hard, he couldn't recall any expression of Ryder's, at the Red Star bar or elsewhere, which indicated that there was any spiritual uplift to his nature which he fed at secret altars; so he pictured the friend and citizen, and the dead fared well at his hands, perhaps better than he was conscious of, for he said no more than he believed.
Then came the prayer and hymn, to be succeeded by a heavy, solemn pause, and Mr. Williamson stepped to the front of the platform-.
“All those who care to view the remains—and I presume there are many here who will wish to look upon the face of our dead friend before it is conveyed to its final resting-place—will please form in line at the rear of the edifice and advance quietly up the right aisle, passing across the church as quickly as possible and thence down the left aisle and on out through the door. This will prevent confusion and make it much pleasanter for all.”
There was a rustle of skirts and the awkward shuffling of many feet as the congregation formed in line; then it filed slowly up the aisle to where Chris Berry stood, weazened and dry, with a vulture look on his face and a vulture touch to his hands that now and again picked at the flowers which were banked about the coffin.
The Emorys, partly out of regard for public sentiment, had attended the funeral, for, as the doctor said, they were the only real friends Griff had in the town. They had known and liked him when the rest of Antioch was dubiously critical of the new-comer, whose ways were not its ways.
When the congregation thronged up the aisle, Constance, who had endured the long service, which to her was unspeakably grotesque and horrible, in shocked if silent rebellion slipped her hand into her mother's. “Take me away,” she whispered, brokenly, “or I shall cry out! Take me away!”
Mrs. Emory hesitated. It seemed a desertion of a trust to go and leave Griff to these strangers, who had been brought there by morbid curiosity. Constance guessed what was passing in her mind.
“Papa will remain if it is necessary.”
Mrs. Emory touched the doctor on the shoulder. “We're going home, John; Constance doesn't feel well; but you stay.”
When they reached the street the last vestige of Constance's self-control vanished utterly. “Wasn't it awful!” she sobbed, “and his life had only just begun! And to be snuffed out like this, when there was everything to live for!”
Mrs. Emory, surprised at the sudden show of feeling, looked into her daughter's face. Constance understood the look.
“No, no! He was only a friend! He could never have been more than that. Poor, poor Griff!”
“I am glad for your sake, dearie,” said Mrs. Emory, gently.
“I wasn't very kind to him at the last, but I couldn't know—I couldn't know,” she moaned.
She was not much given to these confidences, even with her mother. Usually she never questioned the wisdom or righteousness of her own acts, and it was not her habit to put them to the test of a less generous judgment. But she was remembering her last meeting with Ryder. It had been the day before his death; he had told her that he loved her, and she had flared up, furious and resentful, with the dull, accusing ache of many days in her heart, and a cruel readiness to make him suffer. She had tried to convince herself afterwards that it was only his vanity that was hurt.
Then she thought of Oakley. She had been thinking of him all day, wondering where he was, if he had left Antioch, and not daring to ask. They were going up the path now towards the house, and she turned to her mother again.
“What do they say of Mr. Oakley—I mean Mr. Dan Oakley? I don't know why, but I'm more sorry for him than I am for Griff; he has so much to bear!”
“I heard your father say he was still here. I suppose he has to remain. He can't choose.”
“What will be done with his father if he is captured? Will they—” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Goodness knows! I wouldn't worry about him,” said Mrs. Emory, in a tone of considerable asperity. “He's made all the trouble, and I haven't a particle of patience with him!”
BY three o'clock the saloons and stores, which had closed at noon, opened their doors, and Antioch emerged from the shadow of its funeral gloom.
By four o'clock a long procession of carriages and wagons was rumbling out of town. Those who had come from a distance were going home, but many lingered in the hope that the excitement was not all past.
An hour later a rumor reached Antioch that Roger Oakley had been captured. It spread about the streets like wildfire and penetrated to the stores and saloons. At first it was not believed.
Just who was responsible for the rumor no one knew, and no one cared, but soon the additional facts were being vouched for by a score of excited men that a search-party from Barrow's Saw Mills, which had been trailing the fugitive for two days, had effected his capture after a desperate fight in the northern woods, and were bringing him to Antioch for identification. It was generally understood that if the prisoner proved to be Roger Oakley he would be spared the uncertainty of a trial. The threat was made openly that he would be strung up to the first convenient lamp-post. As Mr. Britt remarked to a customer from Harrison, for whom he was mixing a cocktail:
“It'd be a pity to keep a man of his years waiting; and what's the use of spending thousands of dollars for a conviction, anyhow, when everybody knows he done it?”
At this juncture Jim Brown, the sheriff, and Joe Weaver, the town marshal, were seen to cross the square with an air of importance and preoccupation. It was noted casually that the right-hand coat-pocket of each sagged suggestively. They disappeared into McElroy's livery-stable. Fifty men and boys rushed precipitately in pursuit, and were just in time to see the two officers pass out at the back of the stable and jump into a light road-cart that stood in the alley. A moment later and they were whirling off up-town.
All previous doubt vanished instantly. It was agreed on all sides that they were probably acting on private information, and had gone to bring in the prisoner. So strong was this conviction that a number of young men, whose teams were hitched about the square, promptly followed, and soon an anxious cavalcade emptied itself into the dusty country road.
Just beyond the corporation line the North Street, as it was called, forked. Mr. Brown and his companion had taken the road which bore to the west and led straight to Barrow's Saw Mills. Those who were first to reach the forks could still see the road-cart a black dot in the distance.
The afternoon passed, and the dusk of evening came. Those of the townspeople who were still hanging about the square went home to supper. Unless a man could hire or borrow a horse there was not much temptation to start off on a wild-goose chase, which, after all, might end only at Barrow's Saw Mills.
Fortunately for him, Dan Oakley had gone to Chicago that morning, intending to see Holloway and resign. In view of what had happened it was impossible for him to remain in Antioch, nor could General Cornish expect him to.
Milton McClintock was at supper with his family, when Mrs. Stapleton, who lived next door, broke in upon them without ceremony, crying, excitedly:
“They've got him, and they're going to lynch him!”
Then she as suddenly disappeared. McClintock, from where he sat, holding a piece of bread within an inch of his lips, and his mouth wide open to receive it, could see her through the window, her gray hair dishevelled and tossed about her face, running from house to house, a gaunt rumor in flapping calico skirts.
He sprang to his feet when he saw her vanish around the corner of Lou Bentick's house across the way. “You keep the children in, Mary,” he said, sharply. “Don't let them into the street.” And, snatching up his hat and coat, he made for the door, but his wife was there ahead of him and threw her arms about his neck.
“For God's sake, Milt, stay with the boys and me!” she ejaculated. “You don't know what may happen!”
Outside they heard the trampling of many feet coming nearer and nearer. They listened breathlessly.
“You don't know what may happen!” she repeated.
“Yes, I do, and they mustn't do it!” unclasping her hands. “Jim will be needing help.” The sheriff was his wife's brother. “He's promised me he'd hang the old man himself, or no one else should.”
There was silence now in the street. The crowd had swept past the house.
“But the town's full of strangers. You can't do anything, and Jim can't!”
“We can try. Look out for the children!”
And he was gone.
Mrs. McClintock turned to the boys, who were still at the table. “Go up-stairs to your room and stay there until I tell you to come down,” she commanded, peremptorily. “There, don't bother me with questions!” For Joe, the youngest boy, was already whimpering. The other two, with white, scared faces, sat bolt upright in their chairs. Some danger threatened; they didn't know what this danger was, and their very ignorance added to their terror.
“Do what I say!” she cried. At this they left the table and marched towards the stairs. Joe found courage to say: “Ain't you coming, too? George's afraid.” But his mother did not hear him. She was at the window closing the shutters. In the next yard she saw old Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Stapleton's mother, carrying her potted plants into the house and scolding in a shrill, querulous voice.
McClintock, pulling on his coat as he ran, hurried up the street past the little white frame Methodist church. The crowd had the start of him, and the town seemed deserted, except for the women and children, who were everywhere, at open doors and windows, some pallid and pitying, some ugly with the brutal excitement they had caught from brothers or husbands.
As he passed the Emorys', he heard his name called. He glanced around, and saw the doctor standing on the porch with Mrs. Emory and Constance.
“Will you go with me, McClintock?” the physician cried. At the same moment the boy drove his team to the door. McClintock took the fence at a bound and ran up the drive.
“There's no time to lose,” he panted. “But,” with a sudden, sickening sense of helplessness, “I don't know that we can stop them.”
“At least he will not be alone.”
It was Constance who spoke. She was thinking of Oakley as struggling single-handed to save his father from the howling, cursing rabble which had rushed up the street ten minutes before.
“No, he won't be alone,” said McClintock, not understanding whom it was she meant. He climbed in beside the doctor.
“You haven't seen him?” the latter asked, as he took the reins from the boy.
“Seen who?”
“Dan Oakley.”
“He's on his way to Chicago. Went this morning.”
“Thank God for that!” and he pulled in his horses to call back to Constance that Oakley had left Antioch. A look of instant relief came into her face. He turned again to McClintock.
“This is a bad business.”
“Yes, we don't want no lynching, but it's lucky Oakley isn't here. I hadn't thought of what he'd do if he was.”
“What a pity he ever sent for his father! but who could have foreseen this?” said the doctor, sadly. McClintock shook his head.
“I can't believe the old man killed Ryder in cold blood. Why, he's as gentle as a lamb.”
As they left the town, off to the right in a field they saw a bareheaded woman racing after her two runaway sons, and then the distant shouts of men, mingled with the shrill cries of boys, reached their ears. The doctor shook out his reins and plied his whip.
“What if we are too late!” he said.
For answer McClintock swore. He was fearing that himself.
Two minutes later and they were up with the rear of the mob, where it straggled along on foot, sweating and dusty and hoarsely articulate. A little farther on and it was lost to sight in a thicketed dip of the road. Out of this black shadow buggy after buggy flashed to show in the red dusk that lay on the treeless hill-side beyond. On the mob's either flank, but keeping well out of the reach of their elders, slunk and skulked the village urchins.
“Looks as if all Antioch was here to-night,” commented McClintock, grimly.
“So much the better for us; surely they are not all gone mad,” answered the doctor.
“I wouldn't give a button for his chances.”
The doctor drove recklessly into the crowd, which scattered to the right and left.
McClintock, bending low, scanned the faces which were raised towards them.
“The whole township's here. I don't know one in ten,” he said, straightening up.
“I wish I could manage to run over a few,” muttered the doctor, savagely.
As they neared the forks of the road Dr. Emory pulled in his horses. A heavy farm-wagon blocked the way, and the driver was stolidly indifferent alike to his entreaties and to McClintock's threat to break his head for him if he didn't move on. They were still shouting at him, when a savage cry swelled up from the throats of those in advance. The murderer was being brought in from the east road.
“The brutes!” muttered the doctor, and he turned helplessly to McClintock. “What are we going to do? What can we do?”
By way of answer McClintock stood up.
“I wish I could see Jim.”
But Jim had taken the west road three hours be-fore, and was driving towards Barrow's Saw Mills as fast as McElroy's best team could take him. When he reached there it was enough to make one's blood run cold to hear the good man curse.
“You wait here, doctor,” cried McClintock. “You can't get past, and they seem to be coming this way now.”
“Look out for yourself, Milt!”
“Never fear for me.”
He jumped down into the dusty, trampled road, and foot by foot fought his way forward.
As he had said, those in front were turning back. The result was a horrible jam, for those behind were still struggling to get within sight of the murderer. A drunken man at McClintock's elbow was shouting, “Lynch him!” at the top of his lungs.
The master-mechanic wrenched an arm free and struck at him with the flat of his hand. The man appeared surprised, but not at all angry. He merely wiped the blood from his lips and asked, in an injured tone, which conveyed a mild reproof, “What did you want to do that for? I don't know you,” and as he sought to maintain his place at McClintock's side he kept repeating, “Say, neighbor, I don't know you. You certainly got the advantage of me.”
Soon McClintock was in the very thick of the mob, and then he saw the captive. His hands were bound and he was tied with ropes to the front seat of a buckboard drawn by two jaded horses. His captors were three iron-jawed, hard-faced countrymen. They were armed with shot-guns, and were enjoying their splendid triumph to the full.
McClintock gave only one look at the prisoner. An agony of fear was on him. The collar of his shirt was stiff with blood from a wounded face. His hat was gone, and his coat was torn. Scared and wondering, his eyes shifted uneasily over the crowd.
But the one look sufficed McClintock, and he lost all interest in the scene.
There would be no lynching that night, for the man was not Roger Oakley. Further than that, he was gray-haired and burly; he was as unlike the old convict as one man could well be unlike another.
Suddenly the cry was raised, “It ain't him. You fellows got the wrong man!”
The cry was taken up and bandied back down the road. The mob drew a great, free breath of rejoicing. It became good-natured with a noisy hilarity. The iron-jawed countrymen glanced around sheepishly.
“You are sure about that?” one inquired. “He answers the description all right.”
It was hard to have to abandon the idea of the rewards. “What have you been doing to him?” asked half a dozen voices in chorus They felt a friendly interest in the poor bound wretch in the buckboard; perhaps, too, they were grateful to him because he was the wrong man.
“Oh, nothing much,” uneasily, “only he put up a hell of a fight.”
“Of course he did. He didn't want to be hanged!” And there was a good-natured roar from the crowd. Already those nearest the prisoner were reaching up to throw off the ropes that bound him. His captors looked on in stupid surprise, but did not seek to interfere.
The prisoner himself, now that he saw he was surrounded by well-wishers, and being in a somewhat surly temper, which was pardonable enough under the circumstances, fell to complaining bitterly and loudly of the treatment he had received. Presently the mob began to disperse, some to slink back into town, rather ashamed of their fury, while the ever-lengthening procession which had followed the four men in the buckboard since early in the day faced about and drove off into the night.
An hour afterwards and the prisoner was airing his grievances in sagacious Mr. Britt's saloon, whither he had been conveyed by the latter gentleman, who had been quick to recognize that, temporarily, at least, he possessed great drawing-powers. He was only a battered vagabond on his way East from the harvests in the Dakota wheat-fields, and he knew that he had looked into the very eyes of death. As he limped about the place, not disdaining to drink with whoever offered to pay for his refreshment, he nursed a bruised and blackened ear, where some enthusiast had planted his fist.
“Just suppose they hadn't seen I was the wrong man! Gosh damn 'em! they'd a strung me up to the nearest sapling. I'd like to meet the cuss that punched me in the ear!” The crowd smiled tolerantly and benevolently upon him.
“How did they come to get you?” asked one of his auditors.
“I was doing a flit across the State on foot looking for work, and camping in the woods nights. How the bloody blazes was I to know you'd had a murder in your jay town? They jumped on me while I was asleep, that's what they done. Three of 'em, and when I says, 'What the hell you want of me?' one of 'em yells, 'We know you. Surrender!' and jabs the butt of his gun into my jaw, and over I go. Then another one yells, 'He's feeling for his knife!' and he rushes in and lets drive with his fist and fetches me a soaker in the neck.”
About the same hour two small figures brushed past Chris Berry as he came up Main Street, and he heard a familiar voice say: “My, wasn't it a close call, Spide? He was just saved by the skin of his teeth!”
A hand was extended, and the speaker felt himself seized by the ear, and, glancing up, looked into his father's face.
“You come along home with me, son,” said the undertaker. “Your ma 'll have a word to say to you. She's been wanting to lay her hands on you all day.”
“See you later, Spide,” Clarence managed to gasp, and then he moved off with a certain jaunty buoyancy, as though he trod on air.