“I shall give the engineer orders to pull my car out of here!” J. C.’s face was chalky white.
“No, no!” cried the girl, sharply. “That would make them think you were—Don’t run, Father!” she begged, omitting the word which she dreaded to think might become attached to him should he go away, now that some of them had seen him. “We’ll stand our ground, Father. If Corrigan has done those things he deserves to be punished!” Her lips, white and stiff, closed firmly.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “that’s right—we won’t run.” But he drew her inside, despite her objections, and from a window they watched the members of the Vigilantes gathering, bristling with weapons, a sinister and ominous arm of that law which is the dread and horror of the evil-doer.
There came a movement, concerted, accompanied by a low rumble as of waves breaking on a rocky shore. It brought the girl out of her chair, through the door and upon the car platform, where she stood, her hands clasped over her breast, her breath coming gaspingly. His knees knocking together, his face the ashen gray of death, Benham stumbled after her. He did not want to go; did not care to see this thing—what might happen—what his terror told him would happen; but he was forced out upon the platform by the sheer urge of a morbid curiosity that there was no denying; it had laid hold of his soul, and though he cringed and shivered and tottered, he went out, standing close to the iron rail, gripping it with hands that grew blueish-white around the knuckles; watching with eyes that bulged, his lips twitching over soundless words. For he could not hold himself guiltless in this thing; it could not have happened had he tempered his smug complacence with thoughts of justice. He groaned, gibbering, for he stood on the brink at this minute, looking down at the lashing sea of retribution.
The girl paid no attention to him. She was watching the men down the street. The concerted movement had come from them. Nearly a hundred riders were on the move. Lefingwell, huge, grim, led them down the street toward the private car. For an instant the girl felt a throb of terror, thinking that they might have designs on the man who stood at the railing near her, unable to move—for he had the same thought. She murmured thankfully when they wheeled, and without looking in her direction loped their horses toward a wide, vacant space between some buildings, which led out into the plains, and through which she had ridden often when entering Manti. Watching the men, shuddering at the ominous aspect they presented, she saw a tremor run through them—as though they all formed one body. They came to a sudden stop. She heard a ripple of sound arise from them, amazement and anticipation. And then, as though with preconcerted design, though she had heard no word spoken, the group divided, splitting asunder with a precision that deepened the conviction of preconcertedness, ranging themselves on each side of the open space, leaving it gaping barrenly, unobstructed—a stretch of windrowed alkali dust, deep, light and feathery.
Silence, like a stroke, fell over the town. The girl saw people running toward the open space, but they seemed to make no noise—they might have been dream people. And then, noting that they all stared in one direction, she looked over their heads. Not more than four or five hundred feet from the open space, and heading directly toward it, thundered a rider on a tall, strong, rangy horse. The beast’s chest was foam-flecked, the white lather that billowed around its muzzle was stained darkly. But it came on with heart-breaking effort, giving its rider its all. Behind the first rider came a second, not more than fifty feet distant from the other, on a black horse which ran with no effort, seemingly, sliding along with great, smooth undulations, his mighty muscles flowing like living things under his glossy, somber coat.
The girl saw the man on his back leaning forward, a snarling, terrible grin on his face. She saw the first rider wheel when he reached the edge of the open space near the waiting Vigilantes, bring his horse to a sliding halt and face toward his pursuer. He clawed at a hip pocket, drawing a pistol that flashed in the first rays of the morning sun—it belched fire and smoke in a continuous stream, seemingly straight at the rider of the black horse. One—two—three—four—five—six times! The girl counted. But the first man’s hand wabbled, and the rider of the black horse came on like a demon astride a black bolt, a laugh of bitter derision on his lips. The black did not swerve. Straight and true in his headlong flight he struck the other horse. They went down in a smother of dust, the two horses grunting, scrambling and kicking. The girl had seen the rider of the black horse lunge forward at the instant of impact; he had thrown himself at the other man as she had seen football players launch themselves at players of the opposition, and they had both reeled out of their saddles to disappear in the smother of dust.
Men left the fringe of the living wall flanking the open space and seized the two horses, leading them away. The smother drifted, and the girl screamed at sight of the two raging things that rolled and burrowed in the deep dust of the street.
They got up as she watched them, springing apart hesitating for an awful instant to sob breath into their lungs; then they rushed together, striking bitter, sledge-hammer blows that sounded like the smashing of flat rocks, falling from a great height, on the surface of water. She shrieked once, wildly, beseeching someone to stop them, but no man paid any attention to her cry. They sat on their horses, silent, tense, grim, and she settled into a coma of terror, an icy paralysis gripping her. She heard her father muttering incoherently at her side, droning and puling something over and over in a wailing monotone—she caught it after a while; he was calling upon his God—in an hour that could not have been were it not for his own moral flaccidness.