“I can explain—­” cried the judge.

“Make him give me my money!” wailed Mrs Walker.

“Jezebel!” roared the judge, in a passion of rage.

“Ca’m’s the word, or you’ll get ’em started!” whispered the sheriff.  The judge looked fearfully around.  At his side stood Mahaffy, a yellow pallor splotching his thin cheeks.  He seemed to be holding himself there by an effort.

“Speak to them, Solomon—­speak to them—­you know how I came by the money!  Speak to them—­you know I am innocent!” cried the judge, clutching his friend by the arm.  Mahaffy opened his thin lips, but the crowd drowned his voice in a roar.

“He’s his “partner—­”

“There’s no evidence against him,” said the sheriff.

A tall fellow, in a fringed hunting-shirt, shook a long finger under Mahaffy’s aquiline nose.

“You scoot—­that’s what—­you make tracks!  And if we ever see your ugly face about here again, we’ll—­”

“You’ll what?” inquired Mahaffy.

“We’ll fix you out with feathers that won’t molt, that’s what!”

Mr. Mahaffy seemed to hesitate.  His lean hands opened and closed, and he met the eyes of the crowd with a bitter, venomous stare.  Some one gave him a shove and he staggered forward a step, snapping out a curse.  Before he could recover himself the shove was repeated.

“Lope on out of here!” yelled the tall fellow, who had first challenged his right to remain in Pleasantville or its environs.  As the crowd fell apart to make way for him, willing hands were extended to give him the needed impetus, and without special volition of his own,

Mahaffy was hurried toward the road.  His hat was knocked flat on his head—­he turned with an angry snarl, the very embodiment of hate—­but again he was thrust forward.  And then, somehow, his walk became a run and the crowd started after him with delighted whoopings.  Once more, and for the last time, he faced about, giving the judge a hopeless, despairing glance.  His tormentors were snatching up sods and stones and he had no choice.  He turned, his long strides taking him swiftly over the ground, with the air full of missiles at his back.

Before he had gone a hundred yards he abandoned the road and, turning off across an unfenced field, ran toward the woods and swampy bottom.  Twenty men were in chase behind him.  The judge was the sheriff’s prisoner—­that official had settled that point —­but Mr. Mahaffy was common property, it was his cruel privilege to furnish excitement; his keen rage was almost equal to the fear that urged him on.  Then the woods closed about him.  His long legs, working tirelessly, carried him over fallen logs and through tai. tangeled thickets, the voices behind him growing more and more distant as he ran.

CHAPTER XII

THE FAMILY ON THE RAFT