ed the red-bearded man, crossly. "What are ye
sniffin' fer?"

"I'm thinking of the poor fellow that got the mate to this," said Joe,
touching the bandage. "I can't help crying when I think they may have
used vinegar on his head, too."

"Git to sleep if ye can!" exclaimed the Samaritan, as a hideous burst
of noise came from the dance-room, where some one seemed to be breaking
a chair upon an acquaintance. "I'll go out and regulate the boys a
bit." He turned down the lamp, fumbled in his hip-pocket, and went to
the door.

"Don't forget," Joe called after him.

"Go to sleep," said the red-bearded man, his hand on the door-knob.
"That is, go to thinkin', fer ye won't sleep; ye're not the kind. But
think easy; I'll have the things fer ye. It's a matter of pride with
me that I always knew ye'd come to trouble."

VI

YE'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD AND I'LL TAK' THE LOW ROAD

The day broke with a scream of wind out of the prairies and such
cloudbursts of snow that Joe could see neither bank of the river as he
made his way down the big bend of ice. The wind struck so bitterly that
now and then he stopped and, panting and gasping, leaned his weight
against it. The snow on the ground was caught up and flew like sea
spume in a hurricane; it swirled about him, joining the flakes in the
air, so that it seemed to be snowing from the ground upward as much as
from the sky downward. Fierce as it was, hard as it was to fight
through, snow from the earth, snow from the sky, Joe was grateful for
it, feeling that it veiled him, making him safer, though he trusted
somewhat the change of costume he had effected at Beaver Beach. A
rough, workman's cap was pulled down over his ears and eyebrows; a
knitted comforter was wound about the lower part of his face; under a
ragged overcoat he wore blue overalls and rubber boots; and in one of
his red-mittened hands he swung a tin dinner-bucket.

When he reached the nearest of the factories he heard the exhaust of
its engines long before he could see the building, so blinding was the
drift. Here he struck inland from the river, and, skirting the edges of
the town, made his way by unfrequented streets and alleys, bearing in
the general direction of upper Main Street, to find himself at last,
almost exhausted, in the alley behind the Pike Mansion. There he
paused, leaning heavily against a board fence and gazing at the vaguely
outlined gray plane which was all that could be made of the hous