A hastily sworn posse galloped out Main Street.

Women and children ran into neighbors' yards and began to cry.

Day was coming; and, as the light grew, men swore and savagely kicked at the palings of fences that they passed.
In the foreglow of dawn they gathered in the Square and listened to Warren Smith, who made a speech from the court-house fence and warned them to go slow.

They answered him with angry shouts and hootings, but he made his big voice heard, and bade them do nothing rash; no facts were known, he said; it was far from certain that harm had been done, and no one knew that the Six-Cross-Roads people had done it--even if something had happened to Mr.Harkless.He declared that he spoke in Harkless's name.

Nothing could distress _him_ so much as for them to defy the law, to take it out of the proper hands.