They tried to hear; but they did not hear anything except a murmur of voices now and then. They could only guess at what had been said from what happened when Kite had been with Wint five minutes, or perhaps ten. At the end of that period, the door opened so suddenly that Radabaugh was thrown off balance. He stumbled to one side, and Wint came out and sat down at his desk. Kite was on Wint’s heels; he whispered to Wint fiercely, but Wint, without heeding Kite, said to the clerk: “Call Lutcher’s case.” And at that Kite looked at Wint for a moment with a red and furious face, and then he turned and bolted for the stairs and was gone. Wint’s countenance was steady, his lips were white. He heard Radabaugh’s story of the arrest of Lutcher; and when it was done, he asked Routt, who was appearing for Lutcher, whether the man denied anything. Routt hesitated, uncertain what Kite would wish him to do. He whispered with Lutcher. Then he stood up and said: “He has decided to plead guilty, your Honor.” Wint nodded, consulted in a low voice with Foster, and said: “Two hundred and costs.” That was all. While Routt and Lutcher arranged the payment of the fine, the crowd began to disperse, a few lingering in the hope of some fresh sensation. And those who lingered and those who went their way were agreeing, one with another, that this matter was not ended. “Kite’s got something up his sleeve,” Gates told Bob Dyer. “You wait and see.” And Dyer nodded, and grinned, and said: “Yes, wait till old V. R. takes a hand.” When every one was gone except Radabaugh, and Foster, and one or two others, Wint got up and went into his office and shut the door. CHAPTER VII A FEW WORDS TO THE WISE Those minutes--five or ten--which Wint spent with V. R. Kite in his office behind the council chamber, before he sentenced Lutcher, left Wint depressed, shaken by foreboding. He was like one beset in the darkness by enemies he could not see. He felt the imminence of disaster without being able to avert it. The world was all wrong. Life had turned her thumbs down. There could be only destruction ahead. He felt this, without being able to put a name to the peril. It was intangible; Kite had only hinted at it. But the little buzzard of a man had been in deadly earnest. Wint was sure of that. So.... There was nothing to do but wait for the blow to fall; and waiting is the hardest thing in the world to do.