Bothwell laughed, a booming bellow of grim mirth that stirred the crowd to movement. “We’ve been startin’ somethin’! This outfit is out for a clean-up! There’s been too much sneakin’ an’ murderin’; an’ too many fake warrants flyin’ around, with a bunch like them Keats guys sent out to kill innocent men. Damn their hides! Let’s get ’em—all of ’em!” He flung his horse around and leaped it between the other horses of the Arrow outfit, sending it straight to the doors of the city hall. Closing in behind him, the other members of the Arrow outfit followed; and behind them the crowd, now able to center its passion upon something definite, rushed forward—a yelling, muttering, turbulent mass of men intent to destroy the things which the common conscience loathes. It seemed a lashing sea of retribution to Danforth and Judge Littlefield, who were in the mayor’s office, a little group of their political adherents around them. At the first sign of a disturbance, Danforth had attempted to gather his official forces with the intention of preserving order. But only these few had responded, and they, white-faced, feeling their utter impotence, were standing in the room, terror-stricken, when Bothwell and the men of the Arrow outfit, with the crowd yelling behind them, entered the door of the office. * * * * * The little, broken-nosed man had done well to leave the vicinity of the big house before Taylor arrived there. For when Taylor emerged from the front room, in which the light still burned, his soul was still in the grip of a lust to slay. He was breathing fast when he emerged from the house, for what he saw there had puzzled him—the guard lying on the floor and Marion gone—and he stood for an instant on the porch, scanning the clearing and the woods around the house with blazing eyes, his guns in hand. The silence around the house was deep and solemn now, and over Taylor stole a conviction that Carrington had sent Marion to Dawes in charge of some of his men; having divined that he would come for her. But Taylor did not act upon the conviction instantly. He ran to the stable, stormed through it—and the other buildings in the cluster around the ranchhouse; and finding no trace of men or girl, he at last leaped on Spotted Tail and sent him thundering over the trail toward Dawes. When he arrived in town a swaying, shouting, shooting mob jammed the streets. He brought his horse to a halt on the edge of the crowd that packed the street in front of the city hall, and demanded to know what was wrong. The man shouted at him: “Hell’s to pay! Carrington abducted Marion Harlan, an’ that little guy—Parsons—rescued her. An’ Parsons made a speech, tellin’ folks what Carrington an’ Danforth an’ all the rest of the sneakin’ coyotes have done, an’ we’re runnin’ the scum out of town!” And then, before Taylor could ask about the girl, the man raised his voice to a shrill yell: