“But why hasn't he come back, child?”
“Well, he's lying hurt somewhere, that's all.”
“Then why haven't they found him?”
“I don't care!” she cried, and choked with the words and tossed her dishevelled hair from her temples; “it isn't true. Helen won't believe it—why should I? It's only a few hours since he was right here in our yard, talking to us all. I won't believe it till they've searched every stick and stone of Six-Cross-Roads and found him.”
“It wasn't the Cross-Roads,” said the old gentleman, pushing the table away and relaxing his limbs on the sofa. “They probably didn't have anything to do with it. We thought they had at first, but everybody's about come to believe it was those two devils that he had arrested yesterday.”
“Not the Cross-Roads!” echoed Minnie, and she began to tremble violently. “Haven't they been out there yet?”
“What use? They are out of it, and they can thank God they are!”
“They are not!” she cried excitedly. “They did it. It was the White-Caps. We saw them, Helen and I.”
The judge got upon his feet with an oath. He had not sworn for years until that morning. “What's this?” he said sharply.
“I ought to have told you before, but we were so frightened, and—and you went off in such a rush after Mr. Wiley was here. I never dreamed everybody wouldn't know it was the Cross-Roads; that they would think of any one else. And I looked for the scarecrow as soon as it was light and it was 'way off from where we saw them, and wasn't blown down at all, and Helen saw them in the field besides—saw all of them——”