"I'm not quite clear about what happened afterwards. They went away, not

far, I think. There's an old shed, a cattle-shelter, near there, and I

think the storm drove them under it to wait for a slack. It seemed a long

time. Sometimes I was conscious, sometimes I wasn't. I thought I might be

drowned, but I suppose the rain was good for me. Then I remember being in

motion, being dragged and carried a long way. They took me up a steep,

short slope, and set me down near the top. I knew that was the railroad

embankment, and I thought they meant to lay me across the track, but it

didn't occur to them, I suppose--they are not familiar with melodrama--and

a long time after that I felt and heard a great banging and rattling under

me and all about me, and it came to me that they had disposed of me by

hoisting me into an empty freight-car. The odd part of it was that the car

wasn't empty, for there were two men already in it, and I knew them by

what they said to me.

"They were the two shell-men who cheated Hartley Bowlder, and they weren't

vindictive; they even seemed to be trying to help me a little, though

perhaps they were only stealing my clothes, and maybe they thought for

them to do anything unpleasant would be superfluous; I could see that they

thought I was done for, and that they had been hiding in the car when I

was put there. I asked them to try to call the train men for me, but they

wouldn't listen, or else I couldn't make myself understood. That's all.

The rest is a blur. I haven't known anything more until those surgeons

were here. Please tell me how long ago it happened. I shall not die, I

think; there are a good many things I want to know about." He moved

restlessly and the nurse soothed him.

Meredith rose and left the room with a noiseless step. He went out to the

stars again, and looked to them to check the storm of rage and sorrow that

buffeted his bosom. He understood lynching, now the thing was home to him,

and his feeling was no inspiration of a fear lest the law miscarry; it was

the itch to get his own hand on the rope. Horner came out presently, and

whispered a long, broad, profound curse upon the men of the Cross-Roads,

and Meredith's gratitude to him was keen. Barrett went away, soon after,

leaving the cab for the gentlemen from Plattville. Meredith had a strange,

unreasonable desire to kick Barrett, possibly for his sergeant's sake.

Warren Smith sat in the ward with the nurse and Gay, and the room was very

quiet. It was a long vigil.




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