nd a long time after that I felt and heard a
great banging and rattling under me and all about me, and it came to me
that they had disposed of me by hoisting me into an empty freight-car.
The odd part of it was that the car wasn't empty, for there were two men
already in it, and I knew them by what they said to me.

"They were the two shell-men who cheated Hartley Bowlder, and they
weren't vindictive; they even seemed to be trying to help me a little,
though perhaps they were only stealing my clothes, and maybe they
thought for them to do anything unpleasant would be superfluous; I could
see that they thought I was done for, and that they had been hiding in
the car when I was put there. I asked them to try to call the train
men for me, but they wouldn't listen, or else I couldn't make myself
understood. That's all. The rest is a blur. I haven't known anything
more until those surgeons were here. Please tell me how long ago it
happened. I shall not die, I think; there are a good many things I want
to know about." He moved restlessly and the nurse soothed him.

Meredith rose and left the room with a noiseless step. He went out
to the stars again, and looked to them to check the storm of rage and
sorrow that buffeted his bosom. He understood lynching, now the thing
was home to him, and his feeling was no inspiration of a fear lest the
law miscarry; it was the itch to get his own hand on the rope. Horner
came out presently, and whispered a long, broad, profound curse upon
the men of the Cross-Roads, and Meredith's gratitude to him was keen.
Barrett went away, soon after, leaving the cab for the gentlemen from
Plattville. Meredith had a strange, unreasonable desire to kick Barrett,
possibly for his sergeant's sake. Warren Smith sat in the ward with the
nurse and Gay, and the room was very quiet. It was a long vigil.

They were only waiting.

At five o'clock he was still alive--just that, Smith came out to say.
Meredith sent his driver with a telegram to Helen which would give
Plattville the news that Harkless was found and was not yet gone from
them. Homer took the cab and left for the station; there was a train,
and there were things for him to do in Carlow. At noon Meredith sent
a second telegram to Helen, as barren of detail as the first: he was
alive--was a little improved. This telegram did not reach her, for she
was on the way to Rouen, and half of the population of Carlow--at least,
so it appeared to the unhappy co