In what transpired within the next few minutes--and indeed during the hours following--the girl felt like an outsider. No one paid any attention to her; she was shoved, jostled, buffeted, by the crowd that gathered, swarming from all directions. But she was intensely interested.
It seemed to her that every person in Manti gathered in front of the shed--that all had heard of the abduction of the Judge. Some one secured an iron bar and battered the lock off the door; a half-dozen men dragged the Judge out, and he stood in front of the building, swaying in the hands of his supporters, his white hair disheveled, his lips blood-stained and smashed, where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At the third effort he shrieked:
"I--I want protection! Don't let him touch me again, men! He means to kill me! Don't let him touch me! I--I've been attacked--choked--knocked insensible! I appeal to you as American citizens for protection!"
It was fear, stark, naked, cringing, that the crowd saw. Faces blanched, bodies stiffened; a concerted breath, like a sigh, rose into the flat, desert air. Rosalind clenched her hands and stood rigid, thrilling with pity.
"Who done it?" A dozen voices asked the question.
"Corrigan!" The Judge screamed this, hysterically. "He is a thief and a scoundrel, men! He has plundered this county! He has prostituted your court. Your judge, too! I admit it. But I ask your mercy, men! I was forced into it! He threatened me! He falsified the land records! He wanted me to destroy the original record, but I didn't--I told Trevison where it was--I hid it! And because I wouldn't help Corrigan to rob you, he tried to kill me!"
A murmur, low, guttural, vindictive, rippled over the crowd, which had now swelled to such proportions that the street could not hold it. It fringed the railroad track; men were packed against the buildings surrounding the shed; they shoved, jostled and squirmed in an effort to get closer to the Judge. The windows of the _Castle_ hotel were filled with faces, among which Rosalind saw Hester Harvey's, ashen, her eyes aglow.