surging masses. Then in quick frenzy, shots flew;
three men threw up their hands and tumbled limply in the dust, while the
main body rushed pellmell toward town.

At early dawn, when the men relaxed from the strain of the night's
vigil, Alwyn briefly counselled them: "Hide your guns."

"Why?" blustered Rob. "Haven't I a right to have a gun?"

"Yes, you have, Rob; but don't be foolish--hide it. We've not heard the
last of this."

But Rob tossed his head belligerently.

In town, rumor spread like wildfire. A body of peaceful whites passing
through the black settlement had been fired on from ambush, and six
killed--no, three killed--no, one killed and two severely wounded.

"The thing mustn't stop here," shouted Sheriff Colton; "these niggers
must have a lesson." And before nine next morning fully half the grown
members of the same mob, now sworn in as deputies, rode with him to
search the settlement. They tramped insolently through the school
grounds, but there was no shred of evidence until they came to Rob's
cabin and found his gun. They tied his hands behind him and marched him
toward town.

But before the mob arrived the night before, Johnson feeling that his
safety lay in informing the white folks, had crawled with his gun into
the swamp. In the morning he peered out as the cavalcade approached, and
not knowing what had happened, he recognized Colton, the sheriff, and
signalled to him cautiously. In a moment a dozen men were on him, and he
appealed and explained in vain--the gun was damning evidence. The voices
of Rob's wife and children could be heard behind the two men as they
were hurried along at a dog trot.

The town poured out to greet them--"The murderers! the murderers! Kill
the niggers!" and they came on with a rush. The sheriff turned and
disappeared in the rear. There was a great cloud of dust, a cry and a
wild scramble, as the white and angry faces of men and boys gleamed a
moment and faded.

A hundred or more shots rang out; then slowly and silently, the mass of
women and men were sucked into the streets of the town, leaving but
black eddies on the corners to throw backward glances toward the bare,
towering pine where swung two red and awful things. The pale boy-face of
one, with soft brown eyes glared up sightless to the sun; the dead,
leathered bronze of the other was carved in piteous terror.

_Thirty-eight_

ATONEMENT

Three months had flown. It was Spring again, and Zora sat