Gray had promised much. With a drawn and anxious face he had told Cunningham that this day help must come. His telegrams must have produced results. They must have had some effect! He had long since dropped his pretense that his only mission in the hills was the study of the Strange People’s dialect. He was off in Bendale, struggling with a telephone, pleading with a long-distance operator to give him a connection to somewhere—anywhere outside.
Noon came and passed. The afternoon waned, with the inhabitants of the valley growing more and more hysterical in their hatred of the Strange People, and more and more detailed and convinced about the horrors they ascribed to them. The wholly imaginary menace of the Strangers was making it more and more difficult to prevent the formation of a mob. Men raved, wanting to protect their children by wiping out the hill folk. Women grew hysterical, demanding their annihilation.
Cunningham went to Vladimir. Vladimir blinked at him and licked his lips.
“Your servant is a prisoner among the Strange People,” said Cunningham, coldly. “I’m authorized to say he’ll be killed if a mob enters the hills.”
Vladimir smiled, and all his cruelty showed when he smiled.
“How are you authorized to speak for them?”
“Let that go,” said Cunningham grimly. “He’s alive and safe, but he won’t be if that mob goes in.”
The sheriff came in hurriedly.
“Mr. Vladimir——” he began.
Cunningham cut into his report with some sharpness.