"All right," said Clark, with a hurt and offended look, "they can't, then. But it was my duty, sir, to warn you, and I've done it, so I'll be going."
"I beg your pardon, Clark," I said hastily. "I didn't mean to doubt your word or hurt your feelings. You've done quite right in coming here, and it's my business to see that they don't carry out their crazy schemes. Wait a minute, and I'll walk along down with you."
I had a hurried word with Laura Kendrick, and explained to her the importance of the information Clark had brought, and the necessity of laying it promptly before the Committee of Safety.
She looked up at me with some apprehension in her eyes.
"Well, if you must, you must," she said. "But don't you get into any mobs or into any fighting. Just remember that it's the man who orders somebody else to do his fighting that gets the glory out of it. If there's any trouble, see that you're one of the orderers instead of one of the ordered."
I laughed at her anxious counsel, and promising to use all the caution with which nature had endowed me, I joined Clark and left the house.
Directing Clark to attend the sand-lot meeting and to get word to Andrews at once if the mob should head for the Kendrick house, I caught a car and rode to the headquarters of the Committee of Safety.
Horticultural Hall resembled a beehive on swarming day. Wealth and poverty were represented side by side. Merchants, workmen, lawyers, doctors, laborers rubbed elbows, and their stern and serious faces testified to the depth of feeling that had brought them out to the defense of the city. It was an outburst of the same spirit that had given birth to the nation, and had again called forth vast armies to preserve it when its existence was threatened by civil war.
At the end of the hall a number of desks had been arranged where enrolment was still in progress. Behind the desks was a platform, and as I approached it I saw William T. Coleman walk briskly to the speaker's stand.
"Three cheers for Coleman!" came the cry from a strong-lunged Vigilante, and three cheers were given with a will.