Minnie was speaking sadly, mechanically; but suddenly she broke off with a
quick sob, sprang up and went to the window; then, turning, cried out: "I don't believe it! He knew how to take care of himself too well. He'd
have got away from them."
Her father shook his head. "Then why hasn't he turned up? He'd have gone
home after the storm if something bad wasn't the matter."
"But nothing--nothing that bad could have happened. They haven't found--
any--anything."
"But why hasn't he come back, child?"
"Well, he's lying hurt somewhere, that's all."
"Then why haven't they found him?"
"I don't care!" she cried, and choked with the words and tossed her
dishevelled hair from her temples; "it isn't true. Helen won't believe it
--why should I? It's only a few hours since he was right here in our yard,
talking to us all. I won't believe it till they've searched every stick
and stone of Six-Cross-Roads and found him."
"It wasn't the Cross-Roads," said the old gentleman, pushing the table
away and relaxing his limbs on the sofa. "They probably didn't have
anything to do with it. We thought they had at first, but everybody's
about come to believe it was those two devils that he had arrested
yesterday."
"Not the Cross-Roads!" echoed Minnie, and she began to tremble violently.
"Haven't they been out there yet?"
"What use? They are out of it, and they can thank God they are!"
"They are not!" she cried excitedly. "They did it. It was the White-Caps.
We saw them, Helen and I."
The judge got upon his feet with an oath. He had not sworn for years until
that morning. "What's this?" he said sharply.
"I ought to have told you before, but we were so frightened, and--and you
went off in such a rush after Mr. Wiley was here. I never dreamed
everybody wouldn't know it was the Cross-Roads; that they would think of
any one else. And I looked for the scarecrow as soon as it was light and
it was 'way off from where we saw them, and wasn't blown down at all, and
Helen saw them in the field besides--saw all of them----"
He interrupted her. "What do you mean? Try to tell me about it quietly,
child." He laid his hand on her shoulder.
She told him breathlessly (while he grew more and more visibly perturbed
and uneasy, biting his cigar to pieces and groaning at intervals) what she
and Helen had seen in the storm. When she finished he took a few quick
turns about the room with his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, and
then, charging her to repeat the story to no one, left the house, and,
forgetting his fatigue, rapidly crossed the fields to the point where the
bizarre figures of the night had shown themselves to the two girls at the
window.