The little room was jammed with men, thinned out, and jammed again. The electric light flashed up. “What's to pay now?” _The Chronicle_ flung its bold cone of light and glaring challenge across the street. It seemed to strike the canvas with a slap. “Forty Reform votes thrown out in 1st Ward. Fraud!” A hush fell on Tecumseh Street. Then a roar went up that seemed to shake the buildings. Tecumseh Street thundered below, monstrous and elemental, and trembled above like a resonant drum. The mob rolled against the brick front of the block like a surf that might be expected to splash any moment up the flat perpendicular. Grey helmets of policemen tossed on the surface. Faces were yellow and greenish-white in the mingled electric-light and moonlight. Fists and spread hands were shaken at _The Press_ windows. Five or six heads were in the window of the little room. Wood's face was plain to make out by his grey shovel-beard. They shouted comments in each other's ears. “It's a riot.” “No!” “Looks like the bottom of hell, don't it?” Then a little spit of smoke and flame darted like a snake's tongue between the advertising boards, seven feet above the sidewalk. There was a sharp crack that only the nearest heard. Wood flung up his hand, pitched forward, and hung half over the window sill. Someone directly beneath, looking up, saw a head hanging, felt a drop splash on his face, and drew back wincing. The thrill and hush spread from the centre. It ran whisperingly over the mass. The roar died away in the distance to right and left. Tecumseh Street was still, except for the crash where a policeman tore a board from the advertisements with a heave of burly shoulders, and plunged through into the darkness of empty lots. The little room above was now crowded and silent, like the street. They laid Wood on the table with a coat under his head. He coughed and blinked his eyes at the familiar faces, leaning over him, strained and staring. “You boys are foolish. Charlie Carroll--I want--take Hennion--Ranald Cam, you hear me! Becket--Tuttle.” It was like a Roman emperor dispensing the succession, some worn Augustus leaving historic counsel out of his experience of good and evil and the cross-breeds of expediency--meaning by good, good for something, and by evil, good for nothing. “Seems queer to be plugged at my time of life. Take Hennion. You ain't got any heads. Dick!” Hennion stood over him. Wood looked up wistfully, as if there were something he would like to explain. “The game's up to you, Dick. I played it the only way I knew how.” The moon floated clear above the street, and mild and speculative. Ten minutes passed, twenty, thirty. The mass began to sway and murmur, then caught sight of Carroll in the window, lifting his hand, and was quiet. “Gentlemen, Mr. Wood is dead.” For a moment there was hardly a motion. Then the crowd melted away, shuffling and murmuring, into half a score of dim streets. CHAPTER VI--ALCOTT AIDEE