"What's it all about? What's happened? Where have you been?" she asked.
Keith roused himself with an effort.
"I've been a little of everywhere. Lord, I'm tired! There's a mob about trying to get up nerve to hang Casey. I suppose you've heard that Casey shot King this afternoon?"
"Yes, I heard that."
"Well, when I saw nothing was going to happen, I came home, though I'm not sure the trouble is over."
Having said this, Keith fell gratefully to his pillow. Nan was nervous, wide-awake, curious. She asked a number of questions. Keith answered with extreme brevity. He was temporarily exhausted. Shortly he fell asleep between two sentences.
LV
The following morning Keith woke early, slipped to the kitchen where he was fed by Wing Sam, and was downtown before Nan, who had not so promptly fallen asleep, had yet stirred. Even at that hour the streets were crowded. Many—and the majority of these were "considerably tight," or otherwise looking the worse for wear—had been up all night, unable to tear themselves away from the fascinating centres of excitement. The majority, however, had, like Keith, snatched some repose, and now were out eager to discover what a new day might bring forth.
The morning newspapers had been issued. Each man held a copy of one of them open at the editorial column, and others tucked away under his arm. Never had there been such a circulation; and in the case of the Herald never would so many be sold again. For that ill-starred sheet, mistaking utterly the times, held boldly along the way of its sympathies. It spoke of the assassination as an "affray"; held forth violently against the mob spirit of the evening before; and stated vehemently its opinion that, now that "Justice is regularly administered" there was no excuse for even the threat of public violence. If there had been any doubt as to the depth to which public opinion was at last stirred, the reception of the Herald's editorial would have settled it. Actually, for the moment, indignation seemed to run more strongly against that sheet than against Casey himself.
Keith glanced over this editorial with a half smile, tossed the paper in the gutter, and opened the Alta for news. King, still living, had been removed from the office of the Express Company to a room in the Montgomery Block. There, attended by his wife, Dr. Beverly Cole, and a whole corps of volunteer physicians, he was making a fight for life. The bullet had penetrated his left breast. That was all that was to be reported at present. Keith glanced at the third page. His eye was caught by this notice: