oad near the post office,
and pottering about it a large, ungainly man--a hunchback with club
feet.

A few minutes' conversation with him cleared up the mystery. This was
the first he had heard that two girls had ridden in his "saloon" the
night before! His name, he told them, was Duchaine, and he said that he
came from Lewiston, Maine.

"Maybe you've heard of me," he said to Addison, with a somewhat painful
smile. "The boys down there call me Big Pumplefoot."

Unable to do ordinary work, he had learned to take ambrotypes and set up
as an itinerant photographer. But ere long his mother, who was a French
Canadian, had gone back to live at Megantic in the Province of Quebec;
and in June the year before he set off to visit her. Thinking that he
might find customers at Megantic, he had taken his "saloon" along with
him; but when he got to Dresser's Lonesome he found the road so much
obstructed that he left the "saloon" behind, and went on with his horse
and the forward wheels.

An accident had laid him up at Megantic during the winter and spring,
but later in the season he started for Maine. On the way down the old
road from Canada he got belated, and had not reached Dresser's Lonesome
with his horse and wheels until late at night; but as there was no place
where he could put up, and as the moon was shining, he had decided to
hitch up to his "saloon" and continue on his way to the Mills.

Thus the mystery was cleared up; but although the explanation was simple
enough, Theodora and Catherine were little inclined to laugh over their
adventure.

CHAPTER XXII

"RAINBOW IN THE MORNING"

That was the year noted for a celestial phenomenon of great interest to
astronomers.

We were taking breakfast rather earlier than usual that morning in
August, for a party of us had planned to go blackberrying up at the
"burnt lots."

Three or four years before, forest fires had burned over a large tract
up in the great woods to the north of the old Squire's farm. We had
heard that blackberries were very plentiful there that season; and now
that haying was over, Addison and I had planned to drive up there with
the girls, and Catherine and Thomas Edwards, who wished to go with us.

So far as Addison and I were concerned, the trip was not wholly for
blackberries; we had another motive for going--one that we were keeping
a profound secret. One afternoon late in the preceding fall we had gone
up there to shoot partridges; and