ins, toward Russell, the city of
their despair, and clenched their fists and uttered an exasperated
groan. Agents of the Red Cross Society and of the Law and Order League
had already erected their tents, and were doing all they could to
restrain the lawlessness and relieve the discomforts of the mob. Swift
critically watched these seething thousands, who had come upon the spot
from motives of sorrow, curiosity, gain, and plunder, all miserable,
poorly housed and scantily fed. The reporter's inquisitiveness was well
ahead of his human sympathy up to this point.

Within these few days the border line about the afflicted city had
become an improvised camp, that extended for miles and miles. It was
enforced here by a railroad track, there by a village, until, having
completed the gigantic circle, it met again. Thousands were flowing in
each hour. They came from all points of the compass, like flocks of
angels and of devils. As yet the military was not at hand, and the
little law that existed was not of the gospel, but of brute force and
adroitness.

Swift, having sent off his dispatch at the improvised office, and having
forgotten his companion, whom he expected to be a nuisance on his hands,
retraced his steps and hurried to the dead line, where it impinged on
the railroad track. Here was the centre of the maddest rush. Here men
groaned and cursed and wept aloud. Swift pushed his way through until he
reached that portion of the track that defied further passage. A cord
had been stretched there to keep the crowds back. Upon showing his badge
he was received with respect.

"Take keer, boss," said the huge policeman, whose sole duty up to this
time had been to drive the spikes into the sleepers. "I tried it
yesterday. They just pulled me out. I got the d--d shakes yet." With a
grave smile Swift ducked under the rope and looked before him. The
solitary, motionless, blasted prairie stretched out, relieved only by
the outlines of the Buzzard mountains. Where once the tops of towers,
grain elevators and steeples were to be seen on the horizon, there was a
cloud. A dense, strange, ominous mist overhung the stricken city.

This cloud was of a yellowish color that recalled to Swift the dreadful
yellow day of '72. It reached nearly to the summit of the great Buzzard
mountain. Within five miles of the spot on which he stood this
phenomenon became more and more attenuated until it disappeared in dull
transparency. What did that clo