Six-Cross-Roads lay dark and steaming in the sun that morning. The forge was silent, the saloon locked up, the roadway deserted, even by the pigs. The broken old buggy stood rotting in the mud without a single lean, little old man or woman—such were the children of the Cross-Roads—to play about it. The fields were empty, and the rag-stuffed windows blank, under the baleful glance of the horsemen who galloped by at intervals, muttering curses, not always confining themselves to muttering them. Once, when the deputy sheriff rode through alone, a tattered black hound, more wolf than dog, half-emerged, growling, from beneath one of the tumble-down barns, and was jerked back into the darkness by his tail, with a snarl fiercer than his own, while a gun-barrel shone for a second as it swung for a stroke on the brute's head. The hound did not yelp or whine when the blow fell. He shut his eyes twice, and slunk sullenly back to his place.
The shanties might have received a volley or two from some of the mounted bands, exasperated by futile searching, had not the escape of Homer's prisoners made the guilt of the Cross-Roads appear doubtful in the minds of many. As the morning waned, the advocates of the theory that the gamblers had made away with Harkless grew in number. There came a telegram from the Rouen chief of police that he had a clew to their whereabouts; he thought they had succeeded in reaching Rouen, and it began to be generally believed that they had escaped by the one-o'clock freight, which had stopped to take on some empty cars at a side-track a mile northwest of the town, across the fields from the Briscoe house. Toward noon a party went out to examine the railroad embankment.
Men began to come back into the village for breakfast by twos and threes, though many kept on searching the woods, not feeling the need of food, or caring if they did. Every grove and clump of underbrush, every thicket, was ransacked; the waters of the creek, shallow for the most part, but swollen overnight, were dragged at every pool. Nothing was found; there was not a sign.
The bar of the hotel was thronged all morning as the returning citizens rapidly made their way thither, and those who had breakfasted and were going out again paused for internal, as well as external, reinforcement. The landlord, himself returned from a long hunt, set up his whiskey with a lavish hand.
“He was the best man we had, boys,” said Landis, as he poured the little glasses full. “We'd ort of sent him to the legislative halls of Washington long ago. He'd of done us honor there; but we never thought of doin' anything fer him; jest set 'round and let him build up the town and give him empty thankyes. Drink hearty, gentlemen,” he finished, gloomily, “I don't grudge no liquor to-day—except to Lige Willetts.”
“He was a good man,” said young William Todd, whose nose was red, not from the whiskey. “I've about give up.”
Schofields' Henry drew his sleeve across his eyes. “He was the only man in this whole city that didn't jab and nag at me when I done my best,” he exclaimed, with an increasing break in his utterance. “Many a good word I've had from him when nobody in town done nothin' but laugh an' rile an' badger me about my—my bell.” And Schofields' Henry began to cry openly.
“He was a great hand with the chuldern,” said one man. “Always have something to say to 'em to make 'em laugh when he went by. 'Talk more to them 'n he would to grown folks. Yes, sir.”
“They knowed him all right,” added another. “I reckon all of us did, little and big.”
“It's goin' to seem mighty empty around here,” said Ross Schofield. “What's goin' to become o' the 'Herald' and the party in this district? Where's the man to run either of 'em now. Like as not,” he concluded desperately, “the election'll go against us in the fall.”