lifting the front of his cap, he
sympathetically blew the purple bump that served him for a nose till it
rang through the crisp air like a throaty bugle.

Farther on, as he sat pondering deeply and letting the leaders choose
their course, a horseman came cantering toward him, and drew rein beside
his wheel. It was Lounsbury, buried to the ears in a buffalo coat.

"Sure, it's somethin' important, John, that's a-bringin' ye out t'-day,"
cried Old Michael, roguishly, his brogue disclosing his identity. "It's
ayther tillegrams or l-a-a-ydies."

The storekeeper coloured under his visor. "It's nay-ther," he mocked
laughingly.

"None o' yer shillyshallin'," warned the ferryman, giving the other a
playful whack with his gad. "Oi kin rade ye loike a buke."

"You can't read a book," declared Lounsbury. "But I'll tell you: I'm
going to the Lancasters'."

Old Michael nodded, with a sly wink through the portholes of his mask.
"Oi knowed it!" he said. Then, after fishing out a tobacco-bag from
under his many coats and lighting the corn-cob in the protecting bowl of
his palms, "In that case, man, Oi got somethin' t' say t' ye."

He leaned over the wheel confidentially, and Lounsbury bent toward him,
so that the smoke of the pipe fed the storekeeper's nostrils. They
talked for a half-hour, the one relating his story, the other putting in
quick questions. At the end of their conversation, Lounsbury held out
his hand.

"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don't you fail to let me
know."

"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.

They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But
Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying--as on his former
visit--good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the
bearer of evil.

And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the
cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had
hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed
precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions
of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his
manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed
something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury
good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his
cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled
upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks