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

CHAPTER XX

THE IDIOT

At seven o'clock of Monday morning, Johnnie Adamson stood at the
roadside at the front of his father's farmhouse. He held in his hands a
wagon stake which he had found somewhere and with it smote aimlessly at
anything which came in his way. His usual amiable smile was gone. A low
scowl, like that of some angered anthropoid, had replaced it. His
mother, seeing that some unusual turn had taken place in his affliction,
stood at the window of the farmhouse looking out at him and wringing her
hands. She long ago had ceased to weep--the fountain of tears had dried
within her soul. There came to her now and then the sound of his hoarse
defiance, hurled at all who passed by on the road.

"Son John!--Eejit