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290 "Oh, Henny [sic] said his father told his mother that you were going away. He said it was a party."

"Party?"

"Well, Henry said you'd been invited to go away by the voters—who is voters, Aunt Helen?"

She answered him absently and took the glass to stare with unseeing eyes out across the smoke-screened land.

That first warning from the anonymous Citizens' Committee had come on Tuesday. Wednesday brought another which she had not opened at once because she received it with other mail at the mill just as the saw struck a railroad spike buried in a log and scattered in ringing bits.

Raymer had scratched his head and looked at her with startled, owlish eyes.

"Somebody done that," he said dully. "An' this mornin' th' weights had been taken out of th' idler box an' she wouldn't saw. We lost two hours."

Later, as she read the curt warning, she saw connection.

Today was Thursday and the relief which had followed the call from Humphrey Bryant, telling her that the case against him in probate court had been dropped for lack of witnesses, was dissipated by the arrival of another warning.

She saw again Phil Rowe's ruthless smile; heard again his oblique threats.

Goddard came in that evening.

"What's the weather report?" he asked, eyeing her steadily, as though his mind were not on his question or the fire menace.

"Continued fair," she answered and did not look up.