Now in that blazing noon Canaan looked
upon a strange sight: an open carriage
whirling through Main Street
behind two galloping bays; upon the
back seat a ghostly white old man
with closed eyes, supported by two pale ladies, his
head upon the shoulder of the taller; while beside
the driver, a young man whose coat and hands
were bloody, worked over the hurts of an injured
dog. Sam Warden's whip sang across the horses;
lather gathered on their flanks, and Ariel's voice
steadily urged on the pace: "Quicker, Sam, if
you can." For there was little breath left in the
body of Eskew Arp.

Mamie, almost as white as the old man, was
silent; but she had not hesitated in her daring,
now that she had been taught to dare; she had not
come to be Ariel's friend and honest follower for
nothing; and it was Mamie who had cried to Joe
to lift Eskew into the carriage. "You must come
too," she said. "We will need you." And so it
came to pass that under the eyes of Canaan Joe
Louden rode in Judge Pike's carriage at the bidding
of Judge Pike's daughter.

Toward Ariel's own house they sped with the
stricken octogenarian, for he was "alone in the
world," and she would not take him to the cottage
where he had lived for many years by himself, a