“Never fear for me.”
He jumped down into the dusty, trampled road, and foot by foot fought his way forward.
As he had said, those in front were turning back. The result was a horrible jam, for those behind were still struggling to get within sight of the murderer. A drunken man at McClintock's elbow was shouting, “Lynch him!” at the top of his lungs.
The master-mechanic wrenched an arm free and struck at him with the flat of his hand. The man appeared surprised, but not at all angry. He merely wiped the blood from his lips and asked, in an injured tone, which conveyed a mild reproof, “What did you want to do that for? I don't know you,” and as he sought to maintain his place at McClintock's side he kept repeating, “Say, neighbor, I don't know you. You certainly got the advantage of me.”
Soon McClintock was in the very thick of the mob, and then he saw the captive. His hands were bound and he was tied with ropes to the front seat of a buckboard drawn by two jaded horses. His captors were three iron-jawed, hard-faced countrymen. They were armed with shot-guns, and were enjoying their splendid triumph to the full.
McClintock gave only one look at the prisoner. An agony of fear was on him. The collar of his shirt was stiff with blood from a wounded face. His hat was gone, and his coat was torn. Scared and wondering, his eyes shifted uneasily over the crowd.
But the one look sufficed McClintock, and he lost all interest in the scene.
There would be no lynching that night, for the man was not Roger Oakley. Further than that, he was gray-haired and burly; he was as unlike the old convict as one man could well be unlike another.
Suddenly the cry was raised, “It ain't him. You fellows got the wrong man!”
The cry was taken up and bandied back down the road. The mob drew a great, free breath of rejoicing. It became good-natured with a noisy hilarity. The iron-jawed countrymen glanced around sheepishly.