For a furious moment Willy Cameron thought he was referring to his wife, but there was something strange in Akers’ tone.

“I could be useful to you fellows,” he was saying, “but it seems you don’t want help.  I’ve been trying to see the Mayor all night.”

“What do you want to see him about?”

“I’ll tell him that.”

Willy Cameron hesitated.

“I think it’s a trick, Akers.”

“All right.  Then go to the devil!”

He turned away sullenly, leaving Willy Cameron still undecided.  It would be like the man as he knew him, this turning informer when he saw the strength of the defense, and Cameron had a flash of intuition, too, that Akers might see, in this new role, some possible chance to win back with Lily Cardew.  He saw how the man’s cheap soul might dramatize itself.

“Akers!” he called.

Akers stopped, but he did not turn.

“I’ve got a car here.  If you mean what you say, and it’s straight, I’ll take you.”

“Where’s the car?”

On their way to it, threading in and out among the toiling crowd, Willy Cameron had a chance to observe the change in the other man, his drooping shoulders and the almost lassitude of his walk.  He went ahead, charging the mass and going through it by sheer bulk and weight, his hands in his coat pockets, his soft hat pulled low over his face.  Neither of them noticed that one of the former clerks of the Myers Housecleaning Company followed close behind, or that, holding to a tire, he rode on the rear of the Cardew automobile as it made its way into the center of the city.

In the car Akers spoke only once.

“Where is Howard Cardew?” he asked.

“With the Mayor, probably.  I left him there.”

It seemed to him that Akers found the answer satisfactory.  He sat back in the deep seat, and lighted a cigarette.

The Municipal Building was under guard.  Willy Cameron went up the steps and spoke to the sentry there.  It was while his back was turned that the sharp crack of a revolver rang out, and he whirled, in time to see Louis Akers fall forward on his face and lie still.

* * * * *

The shadowy groups through the countryside had commenced to coalesce.  Groups of twenty became a rabble of five hundred.  The five hundred grew, and joined other five hundreds.  From Baxter alone over two thousand rioters, mostly foreigners, started out, and by daylight the main body of the enemy reached the outskirts of the city, a long, irregular line of laughing, jostling, shouting men, constantly renewed at the rear until the procession covered miles of roadway.  They were of all races and all types; individually they were, many of them, like boys playing truant from school, not quite certain of themselves, smiling and yet uneasy, not entirely wicked in intent.  But they were shepherded by men with cunning eyes, men who knew well that a mob is greater than the sum of its parts, more wicked than the individuals who compose it, more cruel, more courageous.