By the time Marion Harlan had dropped into the chair in the room of the house into which the woman had taken her, the crowd that had collected in the street was packed and jammed against the buildings on each side of it.
Those who had come late demanded to be told what had happened; and some men lifted Parsons to the back of his horse, and with their hands on his legs, bracing him, Parsons repeated the story of what had occurred. More—yielding to the frenzy that had now taken possession of his senses, he told of Carrington’s plotting against the town; of the man’s determination to loot and steal everything he could get his hands on. He told them of his own culpability; he assured them he had been as guilty as Carrington and Danforth—who was a mere tool, though as unscrupulous as Carrington. He gave them an account of Carrington’s stewardship of his own money; and he related the story of Carrington’s friendship with the governor, connecting Carrington’s trip to the capital with the stealing of the election from Taylor.
It is the psychology of the mob that it responds in some measure to the frenzy of the man who agitates it. So it was with the great crowd that now swarmed the wide street of Dawes. Partisan feeling—all differences of opinion that in other times would have barred concerted action—was swept away by the fervent appeal Parsons made, and by his complete and scathing revelation of the iniquitous scheme to rob the town.
A great sigh arose as Parsons finished and was drawn down, his hat off, his hair ruffled, his eyes gleaming with the strength of the terrible frenzy he was laboring under. The crowd muttered; voices rose sharply; there was an impatient movement; a concerted stiffening of bodies and a long pause, as of preparation.
Aroused, seething with passion, with a vindictive desire for action, swift and ruthless, the crowd waited—waited for a leader. And while the pause and the mutterings continued, the leader came.
It was the big, grim-faced Bothwell, at the head of the Arrow outfit. With his horse in a dead run, the other horses of the outfit crowding him close, Bothwell brought his horse to a sliding halt at the edge of the crowd.
Bothwell’s eyes were ablaze with the light of battle; and he stood in his stirrups, looming high above the heads of the men around him, and shouted:
“Where’s my boss—Squint Taylor?” And before anyone could answer—“Where’s that damned coyote Carrington? Where’s Danforth? What’s wrong here?”
It was Parsons who answered him. Parsons, again clambering into the saddle from which he had spoken, now shrieking shrilly:
“It’s Carrington’s work! He abducted Marion Harlan, my niece. He’s a scoundrel and a thief, and he is trying to ruin this town!”