Up above the pines on the edge to the east the sun was rising and the air smelled of the woods, of the warm sand of the roadsides, of the perfect May morning. Three men in the quaint garb of pioneer foreigners came down the lane from the shoemaker’s house and turned into the road. Before they had gone many paces old Peter Walling stopped abruptly.
“There is a warning,” he said in Norwegian.
The eyes of the two others followed swiftly to his pointing. In the midst of the sand a twig of willow had been stuck. The top was split, and it held upward a bit of soiled paper. Old Peter seemed undecided whether to touch the message or not, but Halstrom, the shoemaker, plucked it from the stick, and scowled as he tried to make out its meaning. Presently he handed it to his son.
“What does it say, Eric?” he asked.
The message was in English, printed with a lumberman’s coarse pencil, and a rude attempt had been made to draw a skull and cross-bones at the top of the paper. Eric read it slowly, translating into Norwegian as he went along:
“Be Ware! All Norwegans and Sweeds are hereby WARNED not to go to the Town Hall under PENALTY of DEATH.”
It was signed in big letters, “By Order of the Committee.”
Eric Halstrom looked up and laughed shortly. “Well,” he said, “it means us,” and he tucked the message away with some care in his pocket.
“We may need it,” he added.