“Why don’t you let us see?” asked another. Mathews waved his gun slightly. “You’d better go away from here now,” cautioned the sheriff. “I’m tellin’ ye! I’ll have warrants out for the lot o’ ye, if ye don’t mind!” The crowd continued to simmer and stew, while Jake stood as before. He was very pale and tense, but lacked initiative. “He won’t shoot,” called some one at the back of the crowd. “Why don’t you go in, Jake, an’ git him?” “Sure! Rush in. That’s it!” observed a second. “He won’t, eh?” replied the sheriff softly. Then he added in a lower tone, “The first man that comes inside that gate takes the consequences.” No one ventured inside the gate; many even fell back. It seemed as if the planned assault had come to nothing. “Why not go around the back way?” called some one else. “Try it!” replied the sheriff. “See what you find on that side! I told you you couldn’t come inside. You’d better go away from here now before ye git into trouble,” he repeated. “You can’t come in, an’ it’ll only mean bloodshed.” There was more chattering and jesting while the sheriff stood on guard. He, however, said no more. Nor did he allow the banter, turmoil and lust for tragedy to disturb him. Only, he kept his eye on Jake, on whose movements the crowd seemed to hang. Time passed, and still nothing was done. The truth was that young Jake, put to the test, was not sufficiently courageous himself, for all his daring, and felt the weakness of the crowd behind him. To all intents and purposes he was alone, for he did not inspire confidence. He finally fell back a little, observing, “I’ll git ’im before mornin’, all right,” and now the crowd itself began to disperse, returning to its stores and homes or standing about the postoffice and the one village drugstore. Finally, Davies smiled and came away. He was sure he had the story of a defeated mob. The sheriff was to be his great hero. He proposed to interview him later. For the present, he meant to seek out Seavey, the telegraph operator, and arrange to file a message, then see if something to eat was not to be had somewhere. After a time he found the operator and told him what he wanted--to write and file a story as he wrote it. The latter indicated a table in the little postoffice and telegraph station which he could use. He became very much interested in the reporter when he learned he was from the _Times_, and when Davies asked where he could get something to eat said he would run across the street and tell the proprietor of the only boarding house to fix him something which he could consume as he wrote. He appeared to be interested in how a newspaper man would go about telling a story of this kind over a wire. “You start your story,” he said, “and I’ll come back and see if I can get the _Times_ on the wire.”