Very soon after that the other cars arrived.  They drew up and men emerged from them, variously clothed and even more variously armed, but all they saw was the ruined embers of the barn, and in the glow five figures.  Of the five one lay, face up to the sky, as though the prostrate body followed with its eyes the unkillable traitor soul of one Cusick, lately storekeeper at Friendship.  Woslosky, wounded for the second time, lay on an automobile rug on the ground, conscious but sullenly silent.  On the driving seat of an automobile sat a young gentleman with an overcoat over a pair of silk pajamas, carefully inspecting the toes of his right foot by the light of a match, while another young gentleman with a white handkerchief around his head was sitting on the running board of the same car, dripping water and rather dazedly staring at the ruins.

And beside him stood a gaunt figure, blackened of face, minus eyebrows and charred of hair, and considerably torn as to clothing.  A figure which seemed disinclined to talk, and which gave its explanations in short, staccato sentences.  Having done which, it relapsed into uncompromising silence again.

Some time later the detectives returned.  They had made no further captures, for the refugees had known the country, and once outside the light from the burning barn search was useless.  The Chief of Police approached Willy Cameron and stood before him, eyeing him severely.

“The next time you try to raid an anarchist meeting, Cameron,” he said, “you’d better honor me with your confidence.  You’ve probably learned a lesson from all this.”

Willy Cameron glanced at him, and for the first time that night, smiled.

“I have,” he said; “I’ll never trust a pigeon again.”  The Chief thought him slightly unhinged by the night’s experience.

CHAPTER XL

Edith Boyd’s child was prematurely born at the Memorial Hospital early the next morning.  It lived only a few moments, but Edith’s mother never knew either of its birth or of its death.

When Willy Cameron reached the house at two o’clock that night he found Dan in the lower hall, a new Dan, grave and composed but very pale.

“Mother’s gone, Willy,” he said quietly.  “I don’t think she knew anything about it.  Ellen heard her breathing hard and went in, but she wasn’t conscious.”  He sat down on the horse-hair covered chair by the stand.  “I don’t know anything about these things,” he observed, still with that strange new composure.  “What do you do now?”

“Don’t worry about that, Dan, just now.  There’s nothing to do until morning.”

He looked about him.  The presence of death gave a new dignity to the little house.  Through the open door he could see in the parlor Mrs. Boyd’s rocking chair, in which she had traveled so many conversational miles.  Even the chair had gained dignity; that which it had once enthroned had now penetrated the ultimate mystery.