dragging like hundredweights, carried them over the last weary mile.
Into the outskirts of the little town they slunk. The streets were
deserted, muddy, and lighted but meagerly from widely separated oil
lamps set at the tops of as many unstable posts.

Some distance ahead there was a vast glow of light, lifting itself
above the housetops and pressing against the black dome that hung low
over the earth. The rollicking quickstep of a circus band came dancing
over the night to meet the footsore men. There were no pedestrians to
keep them company. The inhabitants of S---- were inside the tents
beyond, or loitering near the sidewalls with singular disregard for
the drizzling rain that sifted down upon their unmindful backs or blew
softly into the faces of the few who enjoyed the luxury of
"umberells." Despite the apparent solitude that kept pace with them
down the narrow street,--little more than a country lane, on the verge
of graduating into a thoroughfare,--the three travelers were keenly
alert; their squinting, eager eyes searched the shadows beside and
before them; their feet no longer dragged through the slippery,
glistening bed of the road; every movement, every glance signified
extreme caution.

Slowly they approached the vacant lots beyond the business section of
the town, known year in and year out to the youth of S---- as "the
show grounds." Now they began to encounter straggling, envious atoms
of the populace, wanderers who could not produce the admission fee and
who were not permitted by the rough canvasmen to venture inside the
charmed circle laid down by the "guy-ropes." At the corner of the
tented common stood the "ticket wagon," the muddy plaza in front of it
torn by the footprints of many human beings and lighted by a great
gasoline lamp swung from a pole hard by. Beyond was the main entrance