ife, and often looking up from his work to shake
his weak fist at his neighbors' domiciles and creak decrepit curses and
denunciations.

But the Cross-Roads was ready. It knew what was coming now. Frightened,
desperate, sullen, it was ready.

The afternoon wore on, and lengthening shadows fell upon a peaceful--one
would have said, a sleeping--country. The sun-dried pike, already dusty,
stretched its serene length between green borders flecked with purple
and yellow and white weedflowers; and the tree shadows were not shade,
but warm blue and lavender glows in the general pervasion of still,
bright light, the sky curving its deep, unburnished, penetrable blue
over all, with no single drift of fleece upon it to be reflected in
the creek that wound along past willow and sycamore. A woodpecker's
telegraphy broke the quiet like a volley of pistol shots.

But far eastward on the pike there slowly developed a soft, white haze.
It grew denser and larger. Gradually it rolled nearer. Dimly behind it
could be discerned a darker, moving nucleus that extended far back upon
the road. A heavy tremor began to stir the air--faint manifold sounds, a
waxing, increasing, multitudinous rumor.

The pike ascended a long, slight slope leading west up to the
Cross-Roads. From a thicket of iron-weed at the foot of this slope was
thrust the hard, lean visage of an undersized girl of fourteen. Her
fierce eyes examined the approaching cloud of dust intently. A redness
rose under the burnt yellow skin and colored the wizened cheeks.

They were coming.

She stepped quickly out of the tangle, and darted up the road, running
with the speed of a fleet little terrier, not opening her lips, not
calling out, but holding her two thin hands high above her head.
That was all. But Birnam wood was come to Dunsinane at last, and the
messenger sped. Out of the weeds in the corners of the snake fence,
in the upper part of the rise, silently lifted the heads of men whose
sallowness became a sickish white as the child flew by.

The mob was carefully organized. They had taken their time and had
prepared everything deliberately, knowing that nothing could stop them.
No one had any thought of concealment; it was all as open as the light
of day, all done in the broad sunshine. Nothing had been determined as
to what was to be done at the Cross-Roads more definite than that the
place was to be wiped out. That was comprehensive enough; the details
were quite certai