bsent. Men had even come from
Visalia and Pixley. It was no longer the crowd of curiosity seekers that
had thronged around Hooven's place by the irrigating ditch; the People
were no longer confused, bewildered. A full realisation of just what had
been done the day before was clear now in the minds of all. Business was
suspended; nearly all the stores were closed. Since early morning the
members of the League had put in an appearance and rode from point to
point, their rifles across their saddle pommels. Then, by ten o'clock,
the streets had begun to fill up, the groups on the corners grew
and merged into one another; pedestrians, unable to find room on
the sidewalks, took to the streets. Hourly the crowd increased till
shoulders touched and elbows, till free circulation became impeded, then
congested, then impossible. The crowd, a solid mass, was wedged tight
from store front to store front. And from all this throng, this single
unit, this living, breathing organism--the People--there rose a droning,
terrible note. It was not yet the wild, fierce clamour of riot and
insurrection, shrill, high pitched; but it was a beginning, the growl of
the awakened brute, feeling the iron in its flank, heaving up its head
with bared teeth, the throat vibrating to the long, indrawn snarl of
wrath.

Thus the forenoon passed, while the people, their bulk growing hourly
vaster, kept to the streets, moving slowly backward and forward,
oscillating in the grooves of the thoroughfares, the steady, low-pitched
growl rising continually into the hot, still air.

Then, at length, about twelve o'clock, the movement of the throng
assumed definite direction. It set towards the Opera House. Presley, who
had left his pony at the City livery stable, found himself caught in
the current and carried slowly forward in its direction. His arms were
pinioned to his sides by the press, the crush against his body was all
but rib-cracking, he could hardly draw his breath. All around him rose
and fell wave after wave of faces, hundreds upon hundreds, thousands
upon thousands, red, lowering, sullen. All were set in one direction and
slowly, slowly they advanced, crowding closer, till they almost touched
one another. For reasons that were inexplicable, great, tumultuous
heavings, like ground-swells of an incoming tide, surged over and
through the multitude. At times, Presley, lifted from his feet, was
swept back, back, back, with the crowd, till the entrance of th