After a while Mary came in and stood by the chair. Her eyes were still red, but she was no longer crying. "You want something to eat now?" she asked dully. "The roast is done." "Yeah, I guess so," he said. He avoided her eyes. She fixed a plate and brought it to him and sat down to watch him eat. "You think there'll be more trouble?" she asked. "They surely won't bother us again, will they?" McCullough chewed thoughtfully. He thought there would be more trouble, but he did not like to worry his wife unduly. "Well," he hedged, "that Henry's kind of a bull-headed fellow." "Don't you be bull-headed too, John. I know you have to do what you think is right, but please be careful." He reached out and took her hand in his. "Honey, I'm sorry. I know it's mighty tough on women sometimes, but a man just can't give in on some things, that's all." He looked down, pleased as always by the contrast of her small, pale, delicate fingers lying in his large blunt chocolate-brown hand. The contrast seemed especially important today, for reasons he could not quite place. Was there some special significance in a black man married to a white woman, a black man setting his will against white men, not as an enemy, but as an equal? Back a couple of hundred years ago, he knew, on Earth--but the thought eluded him, he was not a very articulate or subtle thinker and he could not pin it down. "Don't you worry, Mary," he said, "it'll turn out all right." * * * * * It was almost sundown when Watts came back. McCullough was checking the tourniquet on the native's leg when he heard a commotion in the street outside. "John McCullough," a voice bellowed. "Come out!" Watts' voice, McCullough thought. He picked up his gun, but then he thought he would not feel right facing the men outside, who were after all his neighbors, with a gun in his hands. He looked around. The double-bitted axe he had been using to trim the logs around his window-frames leaned against the wall by the door. "Get in the bedroom, Mary," he said. "Pull the mattress off the bed and lie down behind it with the kids." He took the axe and walked out the door onto the steps, squinting his eyes against the setting sun. The street was full of men in front of his house, perhaps half a hundred or so. Watts and a short stout man stood halfway up the path to the door. McCullough studied them in silence. "Well?" he said finally. "This man here's a deputy marshal, John," Watts said. "We'll take your prisoner and that body now, if you don't mind." The stout man grinned placatingly. "That's right, Mr. McCullough, I've deputized Mr. Watts here and several others to help restore order. We've rounded up all the rioters except that one you've got in there." "You got a warrant?" McCullough asked. "Well, no, I don't really think--"