Miller¹ knocked at the door. There was no response. He went round to the rear of the house. The dog had slunk behind the woodpile. Miller knocked again, at the back door, and, receiving no reply, called aloud.  
"Mrs. Butler! It is I, Dr. Miller. Is my wife here?"
 
The slats of a near-by blind opened cautiously.
 
"Is it really you, Dr. Miller?"
 
"Yes, Mrs. Butler. I am looking for my wife and child,—are they here?"
 
"No, sir; she became alarmed about you, soon after the shooting commenced, and I could not keep her. She left for home half an hour ago. It is coming on dusk, and she and the child are so near white that she did not expect to be molested⁴."
 
"Which way did she go?"
 
"She meant to go by the main street. She thought it would be less dangerous than the back streets. I tried to get her to stay here, but she was frantic⁵ about you, and nothing I could say would keep her. Is the riot almost over, Dr. Miller? Do you think they will murder us all, and burn down our houses?"
 
"God knows," replied Miller, with a groan⁶. "But I must find her, if I lose my own life in the attempt."
 
Surely, he thought, Janet would be safe. The white people of Wellington were not savages⁷; or at least their temporary reversion to savagery⁸ would not go as far as to include violence to delicate women and children. Then there flashed into his mind Josh Green's story of his "silly" mother, who for twenty years had walked the earth as a child, as the result of one night's terror, and his heart sank within him.
 
Miller realized that his buggy, by attracting attention, had been a hindrance⁹ rather than a help in his progress across the city. In order to follow his wife, he must practically retrace¹⁰ his steps over the very route he had come. Night was falling. It would be easier to cross the town on foot. In the dusk his own color, slight in the daytime, would not attract attention, and by dodging¹¹ in the shadows he might avoid those who might wish to intercept¹² him. But he must reach Janet and the boy at any risk. He had not been willing to throw his life away hopelessly, but he would cheerfully have sacrificed it for those whom he loved.
 
He had gone but a short distance, and had not yet reached the centre of mob activity, when he intercepted¹³ a band of negro laborers¹⁴ from the cotton compress, with big Josh Green at their head.
 
"Hello, doctuh!" cried Josh, "does you wan¹⁵' ter jine us?"
 
"I'm looking for my wife and child, Josh. They're somewhere in this den¹⁶ of murderers. Have any of you seen them?"
 
No one had seen them.
 
"You men are running a great risk," said Miller. "You are rushing on to certain death."
 
"Well, suh, maybe we is; but we're gwine ter die fightin'. Dey say de w'ite folks is gwine ter bu'n all de cullud schools an' chu'ches, an' kill all de niggers dey kin² ketch. Dey're gwine ter bu'n yo' new hospittle, ef somebody don' stop 'em."
 
"Josh—men—you are throwing your lives away. It is a fever; it will wear off to-morrow, or to-night. They'll not burn the schoolhouses, nor the hospital—they are not such fools, for they benefit the community; and they'll only kill the colored people who resist them. Every one of you with a gun or a pistol carries his death warrant in his own hand. I'd rather see the hospital burn than have one of you lose his life. Resistance only makes the matter worse,—the odds¹⁷ against you are too long."
 
"Things can't be any wuss, doctuh," replied one of the crowd sturdily. "A gun is mo' dange'ous ter de man in front of it dan ter de man behin' it. Dey're gwine ter kill us anyhow; an' we're tired,—we read de newspapers,—an' we're tired er bein' shot down like dogs, widout jedge er jury. We'd ruther die fightin' dan be stuck like pigs in a pen!"
 
"God help you!" said Miller. "As for me, I must f............