Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/253

 Dunham heard her stop, and her voice, almost a whisper:

"Mr. Dunham! Mr. Dunham!"

He turned in surprise. She was standing near, one hand at her throat as if fright or emotion oppressed her, panting through her open lips. Whatever had given her that turn, Dunham saw at once, it was not the sight of him.

"They're after you!" she whispered, pointing up the street where all seemed so placidly empty. "You must go—quick, quick!"

"After me?" he said incredulously, forgetting MacKinnon's warning in his astonishment.

"In the livery barn—a crowd of them with guns! Get out of town, quick!"

She flitted past him, out of sight in a moment around the corner of the depot, her friendly fear for his safety no greater-than her concern that somebody had seen her warning him, and would lay up a grudge that would make life unendurable for her and her husband in that town.

Dunham understood now why the street was empty. They expected him to pass along there from his horsehunt, his movements having been spied on all the time. Nobody wanted to be seen speaking to him, even to the exchange of the slightest word, for fear of the taint of treason that might attach.

He was angrily contemptuous of the crowd that had collected to give him a rough handling—how rough he plainly understood—waylaying him in the barn, to which they expected him to return when he had failed