As he entered the crowded room he was recognized, and heard his name called again and again. The audience had wakened, was alive! Ellsworth, sitting, alone and anxious, looked up hopefully and beckoned Dan Anderson to his side. The latter seemed scarce to know him, as he walked to the end of the hall and, without preliminary, began to speak.
"Gentlemen," said he,—"boys—I am glad to answer you. I have twice been invited to speak at this meeting. Rather I should say that I am now invited by you. A moment ago I was commanded, ordered to speak, by a man who seemed to think he was my owner.
"He thought himself my owner by reason of this!" He drew from his pocket the roll of bills which had been untouched since he had received them at Sky Top. "Here's my first fee as a lawyer. It's a thousand dollars. I wanted the money. My business is that of the law. I am open to employment. You ought not to blame me—you shall not blame me." He held the money in his hand above his head.
The silent audience looked at him gravely, with eyes level and straight, as it had regarded the speakers preceding him.
"But—" and here he stiffened—"I did not know I was asked to help steal this town, to help rob my friends. These men have proposed to take what was not theirs. They have wanted no methods but their own. They have not asked, but ordered. If this is their way, they'll have to get some other man."
The men of Heart's Desire still looked at him gravely, silently.
"Now," said Dan Anderson, "I've had my chance to choose, and I've chosen. The choice has cost me much, but that has been my personal cost, with which you have nothing to do. I am throwing away my chance, my future, but I do throw them away!" As he spoke he flung at Mr. Ellsworth's feet the roll of bills. "Sir," said he, "it is the sense of this meeting that the railroad shall not come into Heart's Desire. Is it so?" he asked of the eyes and the darkness; and a deep murmur said that it was so.
Dan Anderson stepped down from the little platform out into the room. Hands were thrust out to him, but he seemed not to see them. He pushed on out, haggard; and presently the assemblage followed, breaking apart awkwardly, and leaving Ellsworth standing alone at the rear of the room.
Ellsworth was now wondering what had become of Barkley, and in his discomfiture was turning around in search, when he heard a voice behind him, and passing back encountered Barkley, staggering and bloody, as he entered through a side door of the building.
"Great God! man, what's the matter?" exclaimed Ellsworth. "What's happened to you?"