"I s'pose so," said Tom, "if you think it's safe." But in his present state he shuddered at the idea of being left alone in the dark. "If Abra'm thinks I'd better not clear out, I'll be where I'm wanted in the morning, and they can't say I have run off," he added. So Tom was locked in the court-house and left to feel his way about in the dark. He found, at length, the judge's bench, the only one with a cushion on it, and lay down there to wait for daylight, listening with painful attention to every sound in the streets. When at length he heard the tramp of horses and conjectured that Jake's party were actually looking for him, he could not overcome the unreasonable terror that weakness and suspense had brought upon him. He groped his way up the stairs and slunk into one of the jury rooms above for greater security. XXV LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD Barbara, at her uncle's house, had not been able to go to bed. Tom's fate, she knew, would be decided the next day, and whatever of hope there might be for him was hidden in the mind of his lawyer. Mrs. Grayson had involuntarily fallen into a slumber, and the anxious Barbara sat by her in the darkness, wishing for the coming of the day, whose coming was nevertheless dreadful to her. The sound of a wagon rattling in another street startled her; she went to the window and strained her eyes against the darkness outside of the glass. Though she could not suspect that in the wagon was Bob McCord hurrying to the rescue of Tom, she was yet full of vague and indistinct forebodings. She wished she might have passed the night in the jail. A little after midnight she thought she heard a sound as of horses' feet: again she went to the window, but she could not see or hear anything. Then again she heard it: there could be no mistake now; she could make out plainly the confused thudding of many hoofs on the unpaved road. Presently, from sound rather than from sight, she knew that a considerable troop of horsemen were passing in front of her uncle's house. She left the room quietly, and spoke to her uncle as she passed his door; but without waiting for him she went out into the street and ran a little way after the horsemen, stopping, hearkening, turning this way and that in her indecision, and at length, after groping among the trees and stumps in the public square, reached the jail. Jake Hogan had sent forward two men to watch the prison, while he with his main force surrounded Plunkett's house. The sheriff had obediently kept his place where Bob had laid him, in the middle of the floor, until he got into a chill. Then, as he heard no sound outside of the house, his courage revived, and he crept back into bed.