orers. More deeply
pitched than the clarion--even orchestral in volume--the voice of
Judge Menefee proclaimed the succour that lay in apposition with
their state of travail. The one room of the house was uninhabited, he
said, and bare of furniture; but it contained a great fireplace, and
they had discovered an ample store of chopped wood in a lean-to at
the rear. Housing and warmth against the shivering night were thus
assured. For the placation of Bildad Rose there was news of a stable,
not ruined beyond service, with hay in a loft, near the house.

"Gentlemen," cried Bildad Rose from his seat, swathed in coats and
robes, "tear me down two panels of that fence, so I can drive in. That
is old man Redruth's shanty. I thought we must be nigh it. They took
him to the foolish house in August."

Cheerfully the four passengers sprang at the snow-capped rails. The
exhorted team tugged the coach up the slant to the door of the edifice
from which a mid-summer madness had ravished its proprietor. The
driver and two of the passengers began to unhitch. Judge Menefee
opened the door of the coach, and removed his hat.

"I have to announce, Miss Garland," said he, "the enforced suspension
of our journey. The driver asserts that the risk in travelling the
mountain road by night is too great even to consider. It will be
necessary to remain in the shelter of this house until morning. I beg
that you will feel that there is nothing to fear beyond a temporary
inconvenience. I have personally inspected the house, and find that
there are means to provide against the rigour of the weather, at
least. You shall be made as comfortable as possible. Permit me to
assist you to alight."

To the Judge's side came the passenger whose pursuit in life was the
placing of the Little Goliath windmill. His name was Dunwoody; but
that matters not much. In travelling merely from Paradise to Sunrise
City one needs little or no name. Still, one who would seek to divide
honours with Judge Madison L. Menefee deserves a cognomenal peg upon
which Fame may hang a wreath. Thus spake, loudly and buoyantly, the
aerial miller:

"Guess you'll have to climb out of the ark, Mrs. McFarland. This
wigwam isn't exactly the Palmer House, but it turns snow, and they
won't search your grip for souvenir spoons when you leave. _We've_ got
a fire going; and _we'll_ fix you up with dry Tilbys and keep the mice
away, anyhow, all right, all right."

One of the two passengers who