"That's all you know about it. But I know we are facing a crisis in this county now. Everything I've worked for, everything you fellows have stood for secretly and made me do—all of it may be swept from under our feet in sixty days. That's why I want money, and——"
"All right," Acres interrupted, taking out his check book, "here's mine. And it's more than I can spare."
"Not if I need more!" growled Prim, listing the check with a dozen others.
If an outlaw, armed to the teeth, had passed up and down the streets and robbed every man in Jordantown, they could not have appeared more dejected and, at the same time, alarmed. Conversation languished beneath the awnings. Men sat in their shirt sleeves, side by side, perfectly silent. You do not discuss the thorn in your side—and they all had two thorns. They were not only outraged by Prim's demands, they were suffering from the neuralgia of suspense in regard to the Mosely Estate.
"It's about time for the Signal to be out," said Coleman, looking at his watch.
"Never is anything in it when it does come——My God! What was that?"
The air was rent, torn to mere tatters of air, by a long blood-curdling yell, a yell which seemed to catch its breath with battle fierceness, and then come again.
The two men rushed to the door of the bank. They beheld a scene of the wildest confusion. The square, which a moment before had been sunken in apathy, was now filled with terrific excitement. Men were running from every direction toward the post office, stumbling over yelping dogs, shouting, waving their arms as they ran.
In front of the post office, in the yellow flare of the setting sun, Acres and Coleman beheld a scene which contained all the elements of dignity, rage, pathos, and comedy.
Judge Regis stood with his silk hat perfectly level upon his head, his cane tucked under his arm, and he was looking over the spread sheet of the Jordantown Signal very much as if he stared at an enemy over the top of an impregnable fortification.