"You ain't going," said Wid, quietly.
"One guess! But there'll be trouble. I've only told you a little part of it that that fellow spilled to me. Dorenwald's nutty over these things. He tells what the German Socialists will do when they get to America. He says this is the world revolution,—whatever he means. Oh, my God!"
Annie began to weep in a sudden hysteria.
"Which way did that man go from here?" she heard Wid Gardner's voice at length.
"I don't know. He said he had a man with him, a 'brainy-cat,' he called him, to lecture in halls. He made me promise to be out there at the gate at sun-up to-morrow morning to go away with him. I'd have promised him anything. I'm awful scared. Why don't the men come back?"
Annie Squires was sobbing now. "And this was our country. We let them people in. I know it's true, what he said. And I told him that at sun-up——"
"Don't bother about that," said Wid Gardner quietly. "Now you two set right here in the house," he added, as he rose and picked up the rifle he saw hanging on its nails. "I'm going out and lay in the willers along the lane a little while, near the gate. I can hear you if you holler. I think it's best for me to go out there and keep a watch till the fellers come back. Don't be a-scared, because I'll be right there, not far from the gate."
He stepped out, rifle in hand. The two women sat alone, shivering in nervous terror, starting at every little sound.
They sat they knew not how long, before the clear air of the moonlight night was rent by sharp sounds. A single piercing shot echoed close at hand; scattering shots sounded farther up the lane; then many shots; and then came the sound of a car passing rapidly on the distant highway.