Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/325

 "But the decree says he has to pay back—make restitution for every log—every lath—every stick of timber—why, all he's got has to go back to the Government"

"Not to the Government—to the Salisheutte Indians. They're only a small tribe now."

And so the gossip went.

Men in offices and men in stores and men in shops and mills heard it and gazed at each other incredulously. "What's it mean?" they asked, and wet dry lips and felt a strange quaking in their hearts which seemed to sense or understand before their minds did. What does it mean to have the land, the foundation of society, plucked out from under? It means chaos—paralysis—Russia!

Telephones jingled more persistently, wives calling up husbands, husbands calling up wives who with their consorts had scraped and saved through tedious years of instalment and interest-paying, in order to call their homes their own—and now to learn that they had paid their money to a man who did not own what he had sold them. Lawyers were being consulted and they with grave, steadied voices gave grave, unsteadying opinions.

"If it's taken away from us, Boland will pay it back—that old hypocrite—or I'll dig his eyes out myself," one wife shrieked madly.

An excited small store-keeper closed his doors and went rushing to join the milling mass before the newspaper office. The example was contagious; others closed their doors. It became epidemic. The larger stores had emptied themselves of patrons; soon the very salespeople had begun to trickle out. A sus-