In the harvest districts west of the river all the towns were visited by swift-flying motor-cars that halted long enough for a warning to be shouted to the citizens, “Keep off the streets!”

Simultaneously armed forces of men, on foot and on horseback, too numerous to count, appeared in the roads and the harvest fields.

They accosted every man they met.  If he were recognized or gave proof of an honest identity he was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along under arrest.  These armed forces were thorough in their search, and in the country districts they had an especial interest in likely camping-places, and around old barns and straw-stacks.  In the towns they searched every corner that was big enough to hide a man.

So it happened that many motley groups of men were driven toward the railroad line, where they were held until a freight-train of empty cattle-cars came along.  This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W. contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard following, and then it proceeded on to the next station.  As stations were many, so were the halts, and news of the train with its strange freight flashed ahead.  Crowds lined the railroad tracks.  Many boys and men in these crowds carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W. prisoners as the train passed.  Jeers and taunts and threats accompanied this presentation of guns.

Before the last station of that wheat district was reached full three hundred members of the I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were packed into the open cars.  At the last stop the number was greatly augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few guards who were to see the I.W.W. deported from the country.  Here provisions and drinking-water were put into the cars.  And amid a hurrahing roar of thousands the train with its strange load slowly pulled out.

It did not at once gather headway.  The engine whistled a prolonged blast—­a signal or warning not lost on many of its passengers.

From the front cars rose shrill cries that alarmed the prisoners in the rear.  The reason soon became manifest.  Arms pointed and eyes stared at the figure of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a high bridge span under which the engine was about to pass.

The figure swayed in the wind.  It turned half-way round, disclosing a ghastly, distorted face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then it turned back again.  Slowly the engine drew one car-load after another past the suspended body of the dead man.  There were no more cries.  All were silent in that slow-moving train.  All faces were pale, all eyes transfixed.

The placard on the hanged man’s breast bore in glaring red a strange message:  Last warning. 3-7-77.

The figures were the ones used in the frontier days by vigilantes.

CHAPTER XXII