"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've smashed her place all to hell!" Still another man came, running, shouting--calling out--calling some of those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were streaming down his face. "You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here--oh, my God!--my God! What have you done? She's a good woman--I tell you she's a good woman." The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away from the man who had taken it. "Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was fighting--and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give it to me!" He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them. "Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, men--he'll shoot!" There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came running to join them--Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith--at his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the Church of Christ. "Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break through." So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd men turned and ran--ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the smaller party were almost alone. The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him. "I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I must have left the door open when I went away--I plumb forgot it. Where've you been, anyhow?" "You forgot--you left the door unlocked after she went away--Anne. But I wasn't trying to escape--I wasn't going out of town." "Where was you, then?" "I was down at the bridge--I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was going to take me there.... But I thought of her--Anne, you know, and my mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...." Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can." Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this town--it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye terrible to look upon.