-"

"Then do so!" He sank back exhausted.

"But how did you feel? How _do_ you feel?" asked Swift anxiously.

"As mortal never felt before," replied Mr. Ticks solemnly. With these
words upon his lips he lapsed away again into unconsciousness.

That evening at a late hour Swift made his way to the
four-hundred-dollar team under whose protecting shelter he had ensconced
his patient with such poor comfort as was possible.

Mr. Ticks raised himself from the cushions upon one arm.

"Are you ready?" he said restlessly.

"For what?" asked Swift in astonishment.

"To start."

"Not to-night surely?"

"Yes--immediately. Harness up! We must be at the extreme north of this
unclassified belt by to-morrow morning."

IV.

Empiria, the new county seat of the new county Dominion of the new State
of Harrison, was twenty miles away to the northward as the crow flies,
and at least thirty miles off by road. The horse that Mr. Ticks had the
forethought to purchase developed an unaccountable spavin, united with
an unmistakable case of the heaves: when the whip was applied it
furthermore exhibited an innate tendency to back. Mr. Swift drove
through the darkness of the night, picking out the road with that genius
for locality which the general and the reporter in the field share
alike. Barring mistakes, accidents, or further exhibitions of depravity
on the part of the equine department, they hoped to reach Empiria by
dawn.

Mr. Ticks leaned back upon the jolting seat in unbroken silence. When
his colleague, who drove, hazarded a question, the only reply was a low
grunt. As sleep was out of the question in that wagon, behind that horse
and in those roads, was it pain or mighty thought or nebulous
calculation that oppressed the wise man of the _Planet_? At about two
o'clock in the morning Mr. Stalls Ticks broke his long reserve with the
following remark:

"If it is, it is a unique case. The phenomenon is isolated."

"I hope you feel better now?" Swift had been anxious about his
colleague, and had interpreted his silence as evidence of physical
distress. Mr. Ticks gave an invisible shrug of his shoulders to express
the contempt he felt for his own anatomy in comparison with the
attainment of exact knowledge. Otherwise, heedless of the interruption,
he proceeded:

"It is physically impossible that a low-pressured area could have had
its centre three or four hundred miles northwest of Russell."

"Indeed?" replied Swift