McClintock, pulling on his coat as he ran, hurried up the street past the little white frame Methodist church. The crowd had the start of him, and the town seemed deserted, except for the women and children, who were everywhere, at open doors and windows, some pallid and pitying, some ugly with the brutal excitement they had caught from brothers or husbands. As he passed the Emorys', he heard his name called. He glanced around, and saw the doctor standing on the porch with Mrs. Emory and Constance. “Will you go with me, McClintock?” the physician cried. At the same moment the boy drove his team to the door. McClintock took the fence at a bound and ran up the drive. “There's no time to lose,” he panted. “But,” with a sudden, sickening sense of helplessness, “I don't know that we can stop them.” “At least he will not be alone.” It was Constance who spoke. She was thinking of Oakley as struggling single-handed to save his father from the howling, cursing rabble which had rushed up the street ten minutes before. “No, he won't be alone,” said McClintock, not understanding whom it was she meant. He climbed in beside the doctor. “You haven't seen him?” the latter asked, as he took the reins from the boy. “Seen who?” “Dan Oakley.” “He's on his way to Chicago. Went this morning.” “Thank God for that!” and he pulled in his horses to call back to Constance that Oakley had left Antioch. A look of instant relief came into her face. He turned again to McClintock. “This is a bad business.” “Yes, we don't want no lynching, but it's lucky Oakley isn't here. I hadn't thought of what he'd do if he was.” “What a pity he ever sent for his father! but who could have foreseen this?” said the doctor, sadly. McClintock shook his head. “I can't believe the old man killed Ryder in cold blood. Why, he's as gentle as a lamb.” As they left the town, off to the right in a field they saw a bareheaded woman racing after her two runaway sons, and then the distant shouts of men, mingled with the shrill cries of boys, reached their ears. The doctor shook out his reins and plied his whip. “What if we are too late!” he said. For answer McClintock swore. He was fearing that himself. Two minutes later and they were up with the rear of the mob, where it straggled along on foot, sweating and dusty and hoarsely articulate. A little farther on and it was lost to sight in a thicketed dip of the road. Out of this black shadow buggy after buggy flashed to show in the red dusk that lay on the treeless hill-side beyond. On the mob's either flank, but keeping well out of the reach of their elders, slunk and skulked the village urchins. “Looks as if all Antioch was here to-night,” commented McClintock, grimly. “So much the better for us; surely they are not all gone mad,” answered the doctor. “I wouldn't give a button for his chances.” The doctor drove recklessly into the crowd, which scattered to the right and left.