ung fellow. He don't act like no murderer to me. But
since she left, and since all this here happened, he's wild--Lord! he's
wild!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE MOB

Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services
were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street
she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter--she
could not have spoken to anyone now.

She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back
home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of
her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan
Cowles presently saw.

It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of
farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country
church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed
to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service.
There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the
town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the
public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little
knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or
that gallery front.

No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general
resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a
stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have
started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known;
but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups
gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones.

A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the
street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora
Lane.

"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one
high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too.
Them was days when----"

"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable
of his neighbors around in town today."

"He was, a while back," said someone.

"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about
furtively at the faces of his neighbors.

"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail,"
suggested someone else.

So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little
straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, bey