"I reckon I will, too," called an older man near the rear. One by one, then all at once, they were on their feet, shouting and milling around. Truggles leaped from the stage and forced his way through the crowd to the door. They surged out of the auditorium at his heels and poured down the middle of the street toward the home of Blan Forsythe, yelling.
With Truggles in the lead, the excited citizens swept onto the broad lawn in front of the big mansion, spread out over the grass, trampling the flower beds. There were fifty to a hundred of them.
Porch lights went on all over the neighborhood. From the same direction from which the crowd had come, two figures ran across the yards in the dimness and, circling the edge of the crowd, came up to Truggles. He recognized Phyllis Allison and her son, Donald.
"What is this, Mr. Truggles?" she cried, peering into his face. "What are all these people doing?"
"I'm sorry you came here, Mrs. Allison," he answered, shouting to make himself heard over the uproar of the people around them. "These people are determined to right the wrong this man has done you."
Outside lights from the mansion suddenly lit the entire lawn, and the mob that stirred restlessly on it. A momentary silence fell. Their numbers did not seem as great, their ranks not so solid, in the glare of the lights.
"Come on, Forsythe!" shouted Truggles in a great voice. "Come out and face your judges!"
The front door opened and Allison stepped out on the railinged porch. Truggles, at the front of the crowd, was about seventy feet from him.
"What is this?" demanded Allison. "What are you people doing here?"
"We've come for Forsythe," answered Truggles, and a murmur from the crowd backed him up. "Where is he?"