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.