d to receive due notice of the approach of
persons either in wagons or on foot.

"It will be a good man who runs toll on this bridge," he mused one
day, as he poked dainties between the bars of the parrots' cages.
"The old 'un was a good man in his day, like all the Sprouls. He didn't
have but one arm, but there wa'n't many that ever come it over him.
I've been thinkin' about one that did, and that he was scart of. If
there was ever a man that scart him, and kept him scart till the day
he died, then I'd like to see that same. It will be for me to show
him that the nephy has some accounts of the poor old uncle to square."

Up the slope where the road to Smyrna Bridge wound behind the willows
there was the growing rattle of wheels. The Cap'n cocked his head.
His seaman's instinct detected something stormy in that impetuous
approach. He fixed his gaze on the bend of the road.

Into sight came tearing a tall, gaunt horse, dragging a wagon equally
tall and gaunt. The horse was galloping, and a tall man in the wagon
stood up and began to crack a great whip, with reports like a pistol
fusillade.

Cap'n Sproul took three defiant steps into the middle of the road,
and then took one big step back--a stride that made his "rheumatiz
speak up," but a stride that carried him safely to his platform. The
team roared past. The big whip swished over his head, and the snapper
barked in his ear. He got one fleeting glimpse at the man who was
driving--a man with a face as hard as a pine knot. His lips were rolled
away from his yellow teeth in a grimace that was partly a grin, partly
a sneer. A queer, tall, pointed cap with a knob on its top was perched
on his head like a candle-snuffer on a taper. With a shrill yell and
more crackings of his whip he disappeared into the gloomy mouth of
the covered bridge, and the roaring echoes followed him.

The skipper stood looking first at the mouth of the bridge and then
at the sign above it that warned:

THREE DOLLARS' FINE
FOR DRIVING FASTER THAN A WALK

"As I was jest sayin'," he muttered, as the noise of the wheels died
away, "I should like to see that man--and I reckon as how I have."

He sat down under the woodbine that wreathed the little porch and
slowly filled his pipe, his gaze still on the bridge opening. As he
crooked his leg and dragged the match across the faded blue of his
trousers he growled:

"I dunno who he is, nor where he's come from, nor where he's goin'
to, nor