r answer.

As she moved she heard a low moan. She started, paling, and then stood
stock still, trembling with dread, but determined not to run. The sound
came again, seeming to issue from the interior of the shed, and she
retraced her step and leaned again against the wall of the building,
listening.

There was no mistaking the sound--someone was in trouble. But she wanted
to be certain before calling for help and she listened again to hear an
unmistakable pounding on the wall near her, and a voice, calling
frenziedly: "Help, help--for God's sake!"

Her fears fled and she sprang to the door, finding it locked. She rattled
it, impotently, and then left it and ran across the street to where the
window-washer stood. He wheeled and spat copiously, almost in her face, as
she rapidly told him her news, and then deliberately dropped his brush and
cloth into the dust and mud at his feet and jumped after her, across the
street.

"Who's in here?" demanded the man, hammering on the door.

"It's I--Judge Lindman! Open the door! Hurry! I'm smothering--and hurt!"

In what transpired within the next few minutes--and indeed during the
hours following--the girl felt like an outsider. No one paid any attention
to her; she was shoved, jostled, buffeted, by the crowd that gathered,
swarming from all directions. But she was intensely interested.

It seemed to her that every person in Manti gathered in front of the
shed--that all had heard of the abduction of the Judge. Some one secured
an iron bar and battered the lock off the door; a half-dozen men dragged
the Judge out, and he stood in front of the building, swaying in the hands
of his supporters, his white hair disheveled, his lips blood-stained and
smashed, where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he
looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of
his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips
to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At the third effort
he shrieked:

"I--I want protection! Don't let him touch me again, men! He means to kill
me! Don't let him touch me! I--I've been attacked--choked--knocked
insensible! I appeal to you as American citizens for protection!"

It was fear, stark, naked, cringing, that the crowd saw. Faces blanched,
bodies stiffened; a concerted breath, like a sigh, rose into the flat,
desert air. Rosalind clenched her hands and stood rigid, thrilling with
pity.