ss at the disconcerting
advance of the lawyer than at the spectacle presented by the intrepid
dare-devils upon the steps; a kind of lane actually opening before the
young man as he walked steadily on. And when Mr. Sheehan, leading half
a dozen huge men from the Farbach brewery, unceremoniously shouldered a
way through the mob to Joe's side, reaching him where the press was
thickest, it is a question if the services of his detachment were
needed.

The laughter increased. It became voluminous. Homeric salvos shook the
air. And never one of the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough
to live down the hateful cry of that day, "HEAD HIM OFF!" which was to
become a catch-word on the streets, a taunt more stinging than any
devised by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the ancestral
doubt, a fighting-word, and the great historical joke of Canaan, never
omitted in after-days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took that
short walk across the Court-house yard which made him Mayor of Canaan.

XXIV

MARTIN PIKE KEEPS AN ENGAGEMENT

An hour later, Martin Pike, looking forth from the Mansion, saw a man
open the gate, and, passing between the unemotional deer, rapidly
approach the house. He was a thin young fellow, very well dressed in
dark gray, his hair prematurely somewhat silvered, his face prematurely
somewhat lined, and his hat covered a scar such as might have been
caused by a blow from a blunt instrument in the nature of a poker.

He did not reach the door, nor was there necessity for him to ring,
for, before he had set foot on the lowest step, the Judge had hastened
to meet him. Not, however, with any fulsomely hospitable intent; his
hand and arm were raised to execute one of his Olympian gestures, of
the kind which had obliterated the young man upon a certain by-gone
morning.

Louden looked up calmly at the big figure towering above him.

"It won't do, Judge," he said; that was all, but there was a
significance in his manner and a certainty in his voice which caused
the uplifted hand to drop limply; while the look of apprehension which
of late had grown more and more to be Martin Pike's habitual expression
deepened into something close upon mortal anxiety.

"Have you any business to set foot upon my property?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Joe. "That's why I came."

"What business have you got with me?"

"Enough to satisfy you, I think. But there's one thing I don't want to
do"--Joe