Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-22

The drummer turned to Van. There you
are" he said. There's your chance. If you
wasn't around the surveyors shack YOU ought
to be able to prove it.
Van could have proved his alibi at once, by
sending around to Queeny's residence. He was
nettled into stubbornness of mind and right
anger by all this senseless accusation. He
did not realize his danger, the blackness of the
case against him. That lynch1ng was pos
sible, he could scarcely have been made to be-
leve. Nevertheless as the matter of
no secrecy and the facts must soon be known,
he was turning to the drummer to make his
reply, when his eye was caught by face tar
out in the mass of human forms.
1t was Beth that he saw, her face intensely
white in the light streaming forth from a store.
BostwiCk there at her side. Both had been
caught in the press of the throng as they came
from the telegraph office.
He realized that at best his story concerning
Oueenv would be sufficiently black. With Beth
in this theater of accusation, the story of
Queeny must wait.
It's nobody's business where | wasl' he
said. This whole affair IS absurdi'
Half dozen of the men who were nearest
heard what he said. One of them bawled out
Justify that he refused to admit where he had
been. The mob was angered. The cries for
violent. termination to the scene increased IN
volume Men were shouting, swearing, and
surging back and forth unanimously, wrought
to frenzy of primal virtue.
One near Beth called repeatedly for lynch
ing. He had cut long new piece OF rope from
a coil at a store of supplies and was trying to
drag it through the crowd.
THE girl had heard and seen it all. She real
lied all that it meant. She had never in
her life felt so horribly oppressed with sense
of terrible things impending. Impetuously she
accosted a man who stood at her side.
"Ohi Tell them he with mep she
said
The man looked her over and, raising him
self on his tptoes, shook his hat wildly at the
mob. Say he shouted at the top of his
might, here's eirl he was with at six o 'clocki
1t seemed as if only the men near at hand
either heard paid attention. On the farther
side, away from Beth, the shouts for mob law
increasing She turned to Bostwick
hotlv-
Cant you do anythng2" she said. Tell
them he was there with us, down at Mrs. Dicks,
at six o'clocki
He wasn't said searle. He left there at
five forty-fve.'
The man who had shouted heard what both
had said. Five forty-fve?" he repeated.
" Thunder! That makes a difference
The drummer had caught the shout from out
at the edge. who's that" he bawled.
:" Who's got that albi2"
"All wrong! No good" yelled the man who
had listened to Beth.
The girl had failed to realize how her state
ment would sound-in such place as Goldite.
Van had turned sick when it reached him. He
emphatically denying the story. The gist
of it went through the mass of maddened be
ings, only to be soon impugned by the man
who had started it from Beth. The fury of
what was deemed an attempted deception
burst out with accumulated force.
The Sheriff had drawn a revolver and was
shouting to the mob to keep away. This man
has got to go to jaill' he yelled. you've got
to act accordin' to the law!'
He ordered his deputies to clear the crowd
and make ready for retreat. Three of them at
tempted to obey. Their efforts served to aggra-
vate the mob. Confusion and chaos of judg
ment seemed rising like tide In the very air
was a feeling that suddenly something would
go, something too far strained to hold, and
some terrible deed would occur before these
people could ask themselves how it had been
done.
The fellow with the rope was being lifted by
half dozen intoxicated fools. Had the rope
been burning fuse, 1t could scarcely have lg-
nited more dangerous material than did its
strands of manila in those who could lay their
hands upon it.
The drummer was shouting himself raw IN
the throat-in vain.
Van was counting disaster by the very def
ance of his attitude 1t seemed as if nothing
could save him-when two separate things
Cured
THE doctor who had been with Van at
Oueeny's death arrived in the press got
wind of the crisis, and vehemently protested
the truth. simultaneously the big, raw lurn-
berrnan Trimmer, drunk, and enjoying what