long like a pair of comets, with a long,
spreading tail of hens, all noisily hopeful that this unusual commotion
meant an unusual meal.

Down the lane zigzagged the swift procession, Hannah floundering
farther and farther in the rear. She raised her voice once in a
despairing protest: "Oh, Jake! Jake!" she wailed, "I've forgot my
false teeth!"

Her husband, desperately intent on his destination, did not hear the
appeal, but the little woman who was generaling the flying column did,
and realized that this sign of giving way must be peremptorily crushed.

"You'll jist have to gum it, Hannah!" she shrieked relentlessly over
her shoulder. "Come on, come on!"

Master Davy Munn, still enthroned calmly upon the front seat of the
useless vehicle, contemplated the tumultuous line with supreme
contempt. Mr. Munn never hurried. Should all Elmbrook have risen up
one morning and gone hurtling down to Lake Simcoe, it would have left
him seated alone, undisturbed, on its vacated ridge.

He turned leisurely and chirped to the horses. "Jim Cameron lent yous
to haul that outfit to the station," he complained, as they lumbered
out through the gateway, "but I'll be darned if I promised to run 'em
there, so yous kin git home."

Meantime, the vanguard of the Orphan Rescue Expedition had reached the
railroad track. Just on the outskirts of the village lay a deep
ravine, spanned by a bridge. Over this the train moved slowly, and
here, with his eye on the lookout for white signals, the conductor
spied the Duke of Wellington in the middle of the track, waving a white
banner. Being an Elmbrook man, Lauchie took in the situation at once.
Jake and Hannah were late, of course; too late even to run across the
fields while he waited at the station. He gave the signal, and the
train slowed down, the snorting engine coming to a standstill within a
foot of the flaunting garment.

Engine Driver Nick Boyle, who would have willingly stopped at Elmbrook
every day in the week, to talk over the back fences with the pretty
girls, but who objected on principle to all that his chief did, poked
his head out of his black box, grimy and disapproving. "What in
thunder's Brass Buttons up to now?" he demanded. Miss Weir, who had
thrashed Nick times without number in his youth, fixed him with her
steady gray eye.

"He stopped because I signaled him to, Nicholas Boyle," she said tartly.

The Duke was still standing in the middle of the track, wavin