But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the brute--the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the claims of s.e.x.

These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, n.o.blest and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where they stood.

"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coa.r.s.e voice of someone say in her face....

She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer--she never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room.

The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never dreamed men used--for she knew little of the man animal--heard the rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin.

"d.a.m.n her! She's got away with him!" called out someone.

"Sure she has--we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always gets by with it somehow--she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her life. She's fooled us now once more."

"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man, whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to let her get away with it like this?"

He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of broken gla.s.s as he flung some object across the room.

It was enough--it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time."

They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning, unfeeling, brutal anger....

So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another.

They even tore up the little white bed--at which for twenty years nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! d.a.m.n you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on a rail--that's the medicine for such as you."

The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had pa.s.sed from the mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited, helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What was that last coa.r.s.e, terrible threat that they had meant?

She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence, which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now?

They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a ma.s.s, a mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings; when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause for thought.

There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this ma.s.s that a heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now came running up.

It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame, came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal a.s.semblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung above them all.

"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are you doing here?"

"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "G.o.d! what'll he do to us now?"

The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew.

"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoa.r.s.e, croaking voice above him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen.

We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only cleaning up this town."

But now another figure came running--more than one. Judge Henderson himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried up to the edge of the crowd.

"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in the name of the law! I command it!"

They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now.

And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their heads, their shoulders--and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman who has said farewell to all, everything--life, happiness, peace, hope, and trust in G.o.d.

Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience.

Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell--that at the engine house.

Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the streets.

But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about Judge Henderson--the sudden change in his att.i.tude--the blanched terror, the awful horror which showed now in his face--seemed to bring reason to their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming.

"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you move. What are you doing here?"

At his side there was another, a young man--white-faced--a tall young man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in the attempt to get away--the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest from him one of the revolvers--sought to gain some weapon with which he might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away.

"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. G.o.d! Don't look at that! They've smashed her place all to h.e.l.l!"

Still another man came, running, shouting--calling out--calling some of those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were streaming down his face.

"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here--oh, my G.o.d!--my G.o.d! What have you done? She's a good woman--I tell you she's a good woman."

The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away from the man who had taken it.

"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was fighting--and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give it to me!"

He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them.

"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, men--he'll shoot!"

There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came running to join them--Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith--at his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the Church of Christ.

"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break through."

So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd men turned and ran--ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the smaller party were almost alone.

The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him.

"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I must have left the door open when I went away--I plumb forgot it.

Where've you been, anyhow?"

"You forgot--you left the door unlocked after she went away--Anne. But I wasn't trying to escape--I wasn't going out of town."

"Where was you, then?"

"I was down at the bridge--I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was going to take me there.... But I thought of her--Anne, you know, and my mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...."

Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can."

Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into the face of the one man whom he cla.s.sed as his rival, his enemy in this town--it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye terrible to look upon.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my G.o.d!--my G.o.d!----" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been the little gate of Aurora Lane.