In the foreglow of dawn they gathered in the Square and listened to Warren
Smith, who made a speech from the court-house fence and warned them to go
slow. They answered him with angry shouts and hootings, but he made his
big voice heard, and bade them do nothing rash; no facts were known, he
said; it was far from certain that harm had been done, and no one knew
that the Six-Cross-Roads people had done it--even if something had
happened to Mr. Harkless. He declared that he spoke in Harkless's name.
Nothing could distress him so much as for them to defy the law, to take
it out of the proper hands. Justice would be done.
"Yes it will!" shouted a man below him, brandishing the butt of a raw-hide
whip above his head. "And while you jaw on about it here, he may be tied
up like a dog in the woods, shot full of holes by the men you never lifted
a finger to hender, because you want their votes when you run for circuit
judge. What are we doin' here? What's the good of listening to you?"
There was a yell at this, and those who heard the speaker would probably
have started for the Cross-Roads without further parley, had not a rumor
sprung up, which passed so rapidly from man to man that within five
minutes it was being turbulently discussed in every portion of the crowd.
The news came that the two shell-gamblers had wrenched a bar out of a
window under cover of the storm, had broken jail, and were at large. Their
threats of the day before were remembered now, with convincing vividness.
They had sworn repeatedly to Bardlock and to the sheriff, and in the
hearing of others, that they would "do" for the man who took their money
from them and had them arrested. The prosecuting attorney, quickly
perceiving the value of this complication in holding back the mob that was
already forming, called Homer from the crowd and made him get up on the
fence and confess that his prisoners had escaped--at what time he did not
know, probably toward the beginning of the storm, when it was noisiest.
"You see," cried the attorney, "there is nothing as yet of which we can
accuse the Cross-Roads. If our friend has been hurt, it is much more
likely that these crooks did it. They escaped in time to do it, and we all
know they were laying for him. You want to be mighty careful, fellow-
citizens. Homer is already in telegraphic communication with every town
around here, and we'll have those men before night. All you've got to do
is to control yourselves a little and go home quietly." He could see that
his words (except those in reference to returning home--no one was going
home) made an impression. There rose a babble of shouting and argument and
swearing that grew continually louder, and the faces the lawyer looked
down on were creased with perplexity, and shadowed with an anger that
settled darker and darker.