e
as that of the Mahomedan toward Mecca when he prays. The appearance of
our two strangers excited no notice. Empiria was on a branch road,
difficult of access, but people had flocked in and the village had
become a city.

After a hard struggle, in which persistent ingenuity won, Swift obtained
a little corn for his horse, and a promise of breakfast for himself and
companion.

By six the populace was awake, bustling with feverish eagerness and
oppressed with dread and suspense. Swift questioned a hundred, climbed
to the tops of trees, advanced upon the mysterious dead line, and
retired baffled at every step.

As he thought of that vast enclosure, that was now an unapproachable
cemetery, his soul shuddered within him. Like a thousand beside him,
this man of nerve was baffled and overcome.

By nine o'clock, Swift had exhausted the spot, and was for pushing on to
the westward to complete the perplexing circle if necessary. Perhaps an
entrance might be forced elsewhere. He was sitting in his buggy with Mr.
Ticks, who was as uncommunicative as the dasher when he looked for the
hundredth time towards the Buzzard mountains. As he gazed he saw turkey
buzzards, of which there are thousands in that land, wheeling their
spiral flight above the afflicted territory. Swift looked at them as he
always did, wondering how they could fly so long without flapping their
wings, when suddenly he cried out:

"By Jove! I have it!" This startled Mr. Ticks.

"What? Have you new information? What has occurred?"

"No; but I have an idea--_the_ idea--but I don't see how I could put it
through without time. I will go to Russell, or over Russell in a
balloon!"

The light of inspiration and sympathy flashed from one to the other.

"I congratulate you on the thought," said Mr. Ticks gravely. "I think I
can procure you one in a quarter of an hour."

Now, under no circumstances is a balloon an easy thing to obtain. Even
in a metropolis like New York or London it will take the cleverest
reporter at least eighteen minutes, if not a few seconds longer, to hunt
up a suitable means of ascension. It is not as simple a matter as one
may suppose, to "go up." Therefore, when Mr. Ticks, in a matter-of-fact
voice, asserted that he would procure the balloon in fifteen minutes,
Swift fetched a long low whistle. But not in the least disconcerted by
Swift's manner, Mr. Ticks slowly descended from the vehicle, and said:

"Just wait here until I come back,