Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/409

 His comrades filled up the grave that Uncle Reuben had dug, and opened a new one on the other side of the graves where slept his other loved ones.

Gaston took Tom to his home and stayed with him several hours trying to help him. He seemed to have settled into a stupor from which nothing could rouse him. When at length the old man fell asleep, Gaston softly closed the door and returned to his office with a heavy heart.

As he neared the centre of the town, he heard a murmur like the distant moaning of the wind in the hush that comes before a storm. It grew louder and louder and became articulate with occasional words that seemed far away and unreal. What could it be? He had never heard such a sound before. Now it became clearer and the murmur was the tread of a thousand feet and the clatter of horses' hoofs. Not a cry, or a shout, or a word. Silence and hurrying feet!

Ah! he knew now. It was the searchers returning, a grim swaying voiceless mob with one black figure amid them. They were swarming into the court house square under the big oak where an informal trial was to be held.

He rushed forward to protest against a lynching. He could just catch a glimpse of the negro's head swaying back and forth, protesting innocence in a singing monotone as though he were already half dead.

He pushed his way roughly through the excited crowd, to the centre where Hose Norman, the leader, stood with one end of a rope in his hand and the other around the negro's neck.

The negro turned his head quickly toward the movement made by the crowd as Gaston pressed forward.

It was Dick!

Dick recognised him at the same moment, leaped to-