ak, and bowed with formality to Cary, who, arresting
the doctor's ministrations, returned the salute in kind. The chaise,
beckoned to by Mr. Jones, came up; there was a slight and final exchange
of courtesies, and the two Republicans entered the vehicle and were
driven away.

"Give them five minutes' start, Fair," ordered Cary. "Then call the
coach; I want to get back to town for the Washington mail."

"You'll get back to town and get to bed!" stormed the other. "'Fire in
the air,' quotha! _I_ could have brought down a kite from the blue! You
might, at least, have broken a wing for him!"

"Oh, I might, I might," said the other wearily. "But I didn't. I never
liked this work of breaking wings. Now, Doctor, that is a bandage fit
for a king! Call the coach, Fair. This much of the business is over."

The chaise carrying Lewis Rand and his companion traversed with rapidity
the miles to Richmond. The road was fair, and the day bright and cool.
The meeting by the river had occupied hardly an hour; the world of the
country was yet at its morning stirring, and filled with cheerful sound.
Above the fields the sky showed steel blue; the creepers upon the
rail-fencing still displayed, here and there, five crimson fingers, and
wayside cedars patched with shadow the pale ribbon of the road. Rand
kept silence, and his late second, at first inclined to talkativeness,
soon fell under the infection and stared blankly at the fence corners. A
notorious duellist, he may have been busy with dramas of the past.
Rand's thought was for the future.

They came into Main Street and drove to Rand's office. "We'll dismiss
the chaise here," said the latter. "I have a few directions to give, and
then I'm for the post-office and the Eagle."

"I will precede you there," answered the other. "Allow me, sir, before
we part, to express the gratification I have felt in serving, to the
best of my poor abilities, a gentleman of whom the party expects so
much--"

"Rather allow me, sir, to express my gratitude--" and so on through the
stilted compliment of the day. Assurances from both sides over at last,
and the chaise discharged, the one walked briskly down the unpaved
street toward the Eagle, and the other entered quietly the bare and
business-like room from whose window, last February, he had fed the
snowbirds. The room was not vacant. Before the table, with his arms upon
it, and his head upon his arms, sat Mocket. At the sound of the closing
door he