n an election if
it were held. He's used the discomfort of the people to stir them to a
frenzy against Hilliard's policy of protection for College Hill. He'll
stir them up against anything that means a sacrifice of present safety
for long-range survival. Meggs is a dangerous man.

"Maybe this isn't the way it ought to be done, but I don't know any
other way. When this is all over there will be time enough for
elections, and if I don't step down you can shoot me or run me out of
the country or anything else you like. For the time being, though, this
is the way things are going to be. It's what Hilliard wanted, and I've
got his written word if any of you care to see it."

He looked about challengingly. There was a scuffling of feet. Some
councilmen looked at their neighbors and back again to the Sheriff. None
stood up to speak, nor did any of the visitors voice objections,
although several of Frank Meggs' lieutenants were in the group.

"We'll carry on, then," Sheriff Johnson said, "just as before. Food
rations will remain as they are. We don't know how many of us there will
be after this epidemic is over. Maybe none of us will be here by
spring; we can only wait and see."

Although his assumption of power was accepted docilely by the Council,
it sparked a furor among the populace of Mayfield. Frank Meggs fanned it
with all the strength of his hatred for the town and all it stood for.

Granny Wicks' fortunetelling business continued to grow. Considerations
had been given to the desirability of putting a stop to it, but this
would have meant literally imprisoning her, and, it was reasoned, this
would stir up more fire than it would put out.

Her glory was supreme as she sat in an old rocker in the cottage where
she lived. Lines of visitors waited all day at her door. Inside, she was
wrapped in a blanket and wore an ancient shawl on her head against the
cold of the faintly heated room. She cackled in her high-pitched voice
with hysterical glee.

To those who came, her words were solemn pronouncements of eternal
truth. To anyone else it would have been sheer mumbo jumbo, but her
believers went away in ecstasy after carefully copying her words. They
spent hours at home trying to read great meanings into her senile
nonsense.

It was quite a time before Frank Meggs realized the power that lay in
the old woman, and he berated himself for not recognizing it earlier.
When he finally did go to see her, he was not disappoin