Lute Parsons he gets kind of worked up
after about three or four glasses, and he sicked the boys onto going
out there, and--"
"Going out--where? In the name of Heaven, what do you mean, Judge?"
"I told 'em to keep cool and-- Say, don't be in a hurry, Jim. I had
an awful good mind to call out Hank Simonson to run a few of 'em in.
But I dunno as the boys'll do any real harm. They wouldn't dare. They
know _me_, and they know--"
"Do you mean that drunken mob was headed for Bolton House? Why, Good
Lord, man, she's there practically alone!"
"Well, perhaps you'd better see if you can get some help," began the
Judge, whose easy-going disposition was already balking at effort.
But Jim Dodge, shouting back a few trenchant directions, had already
disappeared, running at top speed.
There was a short cut to Bolton House, across plowed fields and
through a patch of woodland. Jim Dodge ran all the way, wading a
brook, swollen with the recent rains, tearing his way through
thickets of brush and bramble, the twinkling lights in the top story
of the distant house leading him on. Once he paused for an instant,
thinking he heard the clamor of rude voices borne on the wind; then
plunged forward again, his flying feet seemingly weighted with lead;
and all the while an agonizing picture of Lydia, white and helpless,
facing the crowd of drunken men flitted before his eyes.
Now he had reached the wall at the rear of the gardens; had clambered
over it, dropping to his feet in the midst of a climbing rose which
clutched at him with its thorny branches; had run across an acre of
kitchen garden and leaped the low-growing hedge which divided it from
the sunken flower garden he had made for Lydia.
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